A man in Aweil who could not dream of seeing the faces of his loved ones or growing his crops again has regained sight after nearly a decade.
Wol Abuok Bol, 68, lost his sight to cataract in 2014, leaving him unable to do anything on his own.
But with a cataract surgery campaign, which commenced at Aweil Civil Hospital in Northern Bahr el Ghazal months ago, Wol can now see.
“I have been blind for eight years, but today here I am seeing again. I must say I am very happy because I won’t have to be walking with stick again and I will be able to do anything I have not been been doing since I got I lost sight,” the jovial Wol told Akol Yam FM on Monday.
He has many children and wives, according to his relatives.
Cataract, according to the Center for Disease Control, is a clouding of the lens in the eye that affects vision.
The cloudiness, typically a result of changes in the proteins and fibers that make up the lens, causes images to be blurred when light is scattered on the opaque lens.
It says it is the most frequent cause of age-related loss of vision in the world.
Cataract surgery only takes 10-15 minutes to complete, but it is almost completely unavailable in South Sudan, says Samaritan’s Purse, whose team completed over 400 surgeries in November 2022. This is why it progresses to the point of complete blindness.
The ongoing cataract surgery campaign targets at least 1,000 in Northern Bahr el Ghazal and Warrap states.
The treatment exercise, which will end on December 15, is funded by the national and NBG state ministries of health, in collaboration with Catholic Diocese of Wau.
Dr. Jurel Payii the Health Coordinator at Dioceses of Wau said they are operating new people free of charge.
However, he said any patient who underwent one-eye operation last time must pay 32,000 SSP as a cost sharing for the operation of the second eye.
Payii went on to appeal to patients to stop drinking alcohol during and after the treatment.