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Like Mother, Like Son
It was screening day in Laos at Vientiane Ophthalmology Centre, when ORBIS volunteer faculty and staff identify patients for surgery. Like many small boys the world over, eight-year-old Peul Bouttavong found it hard to sit in one place for very long. He
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Click here to experience Laos with Peul, his mother and the ORBIS Flying Eye Hospital
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amused himself by darting around the patient waiting area, tossing a foam rubber airplane into the air and then sprinting hard to make the catch.
His mother, Phonesavanch Hatsady, age 35, sat quietly, watching him. When she was born with congenital ptosis (commonly known as droopy eyelid), the condition could not be treated surgically in her province of Luang Namtha, Laos, which borders southern China.
Eight years ago, when Phonesavanch gave birth to Peul, her persistent worries of passing on this condition to him seemed to disappear. Then, about two weeks into his life, she noticed that his right eye was not opening all the way. Her lingering fear had come true.
Like her, he was born with congenital ptosis – when the upper eyelid fails to rise above the pupil line, brought on by an isolated dystrophy of the muscle that normally elevates the eyelid. The condition can lead to amblyopia, also referred to as lazy eye, in which the eye may look normal, but is functionally blind.
Phonesavanch, a highly educated woman and trained emergency medical doctor, was frustrated at not being able to help her child. When a colleague from the general hospital’s eye clinic told her about ORBIS, she packed up her son and made the 24-hour bus journey from their province to Vientiane.
Their surgeries were split: mother on the first day, her child on the second day. Onboard the Flying Eye Hospital, Peul’s surgery was broadcast to the seating area and teaching facility in the front of the plane. During the procedure, two hands-on Lao trainees assisted ORBIS volunteer physician, Dr. Kimberley Hakin, an oculoplastics specialist from the United Kingdom.
“Both of these cases proved to be very successful for both the patient outcome and the teaching of the local physicians,” said Dr. Srini Iyengar, an ORBIS staff ophthalmologist. “In terms of recovery, both the mother and son are doing extremely well.”
Eye care in need
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Laotian doctor prepares his patient to be seen by an ORBIS specialist
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The World Health Organization estimates that blindness affects more than 45 million people around the world, 90 percent of whom live in developing countries. With approximately 30,000 blind, the leading causes of eye diseases in Laos include cataract, corneal scarring, glaucoma and retinal diseases.
Currently, Laos has only 25 eye doctors for its six million people. To date, there are no in-country subspecialty training programs for ophthalmologists or formal study programs for ophthalmic nurses or biomedical engineers.
Over the last two weeks of January 2009, the ORBIS Flying Eye Hospital, the world’s only airborne surgical and training facility housed within a DC-10 aircraft, helped fill this gap. It visited Laos for the first time on a presidential invite, finding a home for itself on the tarmac of Wattay International Airport.
While incoming Thai Airways planes from Bangkok unloaded passengers and Vietnam Airlines jets taxied for take off to Phnom Penh, 45 ophthalmologists and medical professionals from Laos and its neighbors – Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar and Vietnam – diligently worked side-by-side with an international medical team onboard the Flying Eye Hospital.
Training to improve local surgical techniques, nursing skills and all levels of eye care came from a whip-smart team of volunteer specialists in cataract, glaucoma, retina and oculoplastics – a specialized area that focuses on eyelid abnormalities and reconstructive surgery.
While not all those in need of care were as fortunate as Phonesavanch and her son Peul, with the help of ORBIS, ophthalmologists in Laos now have a better chance for tackling curable forms of blindness in the years to come.
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