Giving sight to the blind – Vaal doctor’s free, life-changing work in rural Mpumalanga

Sitting in a cold theatre room with an elderly woman laying next to him ahead of a cataract surgery on Friday morning, ophthalmologist Dr Sachin Bawa is about to start the second of a two day cataract blitz, performing multiple restorative surgeries on those who would otherwise never see clearly again.

The patients he serves here don’t have to pay for his services, and he actually sacrifices his own time and money, since being here means taking leave from his day-job to volunteer his skills in restoring vision to the surrounding communities of Acornhoek, Mpumalanga.

For the fourth time this year, Bawa left his 3-year-old daughter and wife back in Gauteng to travel to Acornhoek as part of voluntary work with local organisation Tshemba Foundation, to perform free cataract surgeries at the hospital.

Bawa had landed at Hoedspruit airport by 11:00 from Johannesburg on Thursday morning, and by 13:00 he is already in his scrubs and behind an operating table, ahead of his first patient who is rolled in for the quick procedure.

The first day of his two-day visit to the Tintswalo Hospital in the small Mpumalanga town was unusually busy, apparently due to the previous day being a public holiday.

“Bula matlho (open your eyes),” he says in SeTswana to one of his patients, while asking his assistant for the XiTsonga word for “eyes” as that is the common language spoken in the community.

After 20 surgeries on the day, Bawa, who had planned to sit with us for an interview that night once he had returned to his lodge, instead requested to postpone the chat to the following morning in the theatre.

“I did the last surgery at 6PM last night. I am doing another 20 surgeries today,” he says on Friday morning.

The accidental ophthalmologist

His passion is obvious, which makes it especially surprising that while growing up in the Vaal in Gauteng, the 41-year-old ophthalmic surgeon had no dreams of specialising in eye disorders, but had found himself “stumbling” upon the profession while studying medicine at the University of Witswatersrand in 1998.

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“I completed medicine in 2003 and did the internships and training, and decided to go into ophthalmology for no particular reason. I just wanted to specialise in something and with ophthalmology and its advances and technologies, I thought it would be something I could do,” he says.

Dr. Sachin Bawa, Ophthalmic surgeon in the surgery room ahead of the day’s cataract operations at the Tintswalo Hospital, Acornhoek in Mpumalanga, 18 June 2021. Picture: Jacques Nelles

‘Everyone wants to do something for everyone else’

Nervous patients lie down on the operating table while Bawa sits behind a microscopic lens, using advanced equipment and technology to break and remove the cataract, open up the pupil to implant a small plastic lens into the patient’s eye.

While he has a private practice at the Linksfield Hospital in Johannesburg, a large part of his work consists of community work with various foundations, including the Netcare Right to Sight Foundation, Sultan Bahu Foundation, and the South African Life Improvement Charitable Trust (SALICT), he says.

Anticipating my next question, he said: “You’re probably wondering why I do this. I think everyone has some sort of humanity and humility and everyone wants to do something for everyone else.”

Dr. Sachin Bawa, Ophthalmic surgeon in the surgery room ahead of the day’s cataract operations at the Tintswalo Hospital, Acornhoek in Mpumalanga, 18 June 2021. Picture: Jacques Nelles

A quick procedure changing multiple lives

Bawa believes it is unfortunate and unfair that patients wait years for a quick surgery which could essentially change their lives and that of their families.

To him it is not only about making a social or health impact, but also a socio-economic one.

“It is also a socio-economic impact, because by providing vision to people, or cataract surgery – which is reversible blindness – we enable people to see and function and become economically active, and be economic participants,” he says.

“Many of our patients are in their 30s and 40s and look after households and extended families… Reversing their disability gets them back into becoming economic participating citizens.

“That is the bigger picture for me… If we can clear 40 pairs of eyes, we can change 40 lives and 40 families.”

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rorisangk@citizen.co.za