God of Sight: Prominent Nepal doctor to expand work beyond border

Dr Sanduk Ruit has performed some 130,000 cataract surgeries and is now aiming to take his work to other nations.

Just next to Nepal’s Mayadevi temple where Buddha was born more than 2,600 years ago, hundreds of people line up outside a makeshift hospital on a recent hazy day, hoping their fading eyesight can be restored. A day later, the saffron-robed Buddhist monks, old farmers and housewives are able to see the world again because the nation’s renowned eye surgeon Dr Sanduk Ruit was there with his innovative and inexpensive cataract surgery that has earned him many awards. At the visitor centre turned into temporary eye hospital in Lumbini, located 288 kilometres (180 miles) southwest of Nepal’s capital Kathmandu, the assembly-line surgery has made it possible for nearly 400 patients to get Ruit’s surgery in just three days.