Ophthalmologist Dr Sanduk Ruit, who has helped save the sight of more than 120,000 people using his modern cataract surgery technique, has spoken for the first time of the ‘honour’ he felt having been named winner of the Isa Award for Service to Humanity.
He hopes the international acclaim achieved by receiving the prestigious accolade will draw even more attention to solving the problem of treatable blindness around the world.
The Nepalese father-of-three was working at the Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology in Kathmandu when he received the call from the award selection team, which he recalls as the ‘greatest blessing in the world’.
“I was both very happy and amazed,” said the 69-year-old, who boasts an MBBS degree from King George’s Medical College Lucknow in 1976 and his MD in ophthalmology from the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi in 1984. He trained at the Australian Prince of Wales Hospital in Sydney from 1987 to 1988.
“I really want to convey my deepest gratitude to the kingdom, the Isa Award arbitration committee and the field research team.
“Winning this award provides me with credibility for all that has been done and will help in garnering further support to tackle blindness globally.”
The bi-annual award, established in 2009 by His Majesty King Hamad, reflects the generous, caring and selfless contributions of the late His Highness Shaikh Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa to humanity.
Dr Ruit will be granted the laureate at a special ceremony on February 21, under the patronage of the King, in the presence of dignitaries and guests.
He will receive a certificate of appreciation, a 21K gold memento and $1 million for his outstanding services to humanity.
“This award will allow me to connect with organisations around the world that need funding support for their projects,” he said. “I’m humbled to be chosen from this small part of the world, especially competing against some of the greats in their own specialities.”
Dr Ruit recalled his humble start to life, living with his parents and five siblings in a small cluster of homes in a remote village in eastern Nepal, Olangchung Gola, at the foothills of Mount Kanchenjunga.
“It was very beautiful, but also far away,” he said. “There were no schools or electricity. It took my dad, Sonam, and I, 15 days to walk to the nearest boarding school. It wasn’t fancy but a school that my father could afford.
“He worked very hard as a small time trader to get us into school, and considering his status, I believe my father was a visionary,” Dr Ruit added.
Due to the distance in travelling, Dr Ruit often had to stay in school throughout the holidays, which he says, taught him early on ‘to be strong’. “I developed a will power and focus and I learned that nothing comes to hand readymade,” he said.
After three years of study, he returned to his family home. Sadly, one brother and two sisters died due to a lack of medical facilities nearby and that experience, alongside his sister, Yangla’s encouragement, his passion for medicine was ignited.
“For somebody who came from such a remote area to study medicine was unthinkable and what motivated me was my sister who was seriously sick with tuberculosis,” he said.
“She was the one who told me that I have the potential to help others like her and those in need in Nepal. When she passed away at 16, from a lack of medicine, it broke my heart but also motivated me to help others. I often see her face to this day.”
After six years of studying general medicine in India, he returned to Nepal, which opened his eyes to ophthalmology.
“I had an opportunity to work with one of the most senior eye surgeons in the country,” he explained. “One day, we restored the sight of four children from the same family and I thought that was beautiful and how it really can make a difference in people’s lives. That’s how it all began.”
He then directed his energies toward the treatment of cataracts – a condition responsible for half of all global blindness cases – which although easily treatable in developed regions, proved difficult and expensive in poorer parts of the world.
Patients undergoing surgery often had to wear thick, ‘coke-bottle’ like glasses to see, which magnified everything but made co-ordination difficult and incredibly challenging for those living amidst Nepal’s mountainous terrain. “The cost of the intraocular lenses (IOLs) was very high – about $200 per unit,” he explained. “I put all that will power and focus I grew up with to good use, searching for a low-cost, high-quality, suture-less surgical technique, as well as a more cost effective eye lens alternative.”
The answer came in the shape of the Intraocular (IOL) lens implanted in the eye as part of a treatment for cataracts.
IOL is a precisely designed and crafted tiny piece of plastic that is used to replace the natural lens.
In 1985, while the late Dr Fred Hollows was working on an evaluation of Nepal’s blindness prevention programme for the World Health Organisation, he met Dr Ruit and the pair quickly became close friends and bonded over their mutual desire for a world where no one was needlessly blind.
Dr Ruit continued his work through eye surgery camps across remote Nepal with a team he dubbed ‘The Magnificent Seven’.
In 1990, they published the results of the first IOL in a developing country in the Archives of Ophthalmology and started looking at manufacturing the lens from a factory in Nepal. He established a factory in his hometown.
Dr Ruit modified and perfected small-incision cataract surgery (SICS) and at the same time reduced the cost of the intraocular lenses from $100 to less than $5.
His technique also allows him to perform surgeries in less than five minutes during which he removes the cataract without stitches through small incisions, and replaces them with the cost-effective artificial lens.
The model has been used in many parts of the developing world to provide affordable, high-quality cataract surgery.
Over the years, he has led a team of ophthalmologists to several Asian and African countries to treat thousands of underprivileged patients and train local medics.
He has trained more than 650 doctors and is close to having completed more than 130,000 cataract surgeries.
His work took him to the poorest places in China, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, North Korea, Myanmar, Indonesia, Vietnam, Ethiopia and Ghana.
“Most of the cataract surgeries that we do are in marginalised communities and for people that really need it, so it’s either free or affordable,” he said.
He has received several accolades including the Asian Game Changer Award by the Asia Society of New York in 2016, and the Albert Einstein Foundation as one of the ‘Hundred Leading Global Visionaries of the Century’ the following year.
Family is also very important to Dr Ruit. He adores his wife Nanda, 60, and his children. His son Sagar, 32, is an eye doctor, his daughter Serabla, 30, is a management graduate that looks after an eye foundation and the other daughter Satenla, 26, qualified as a doctor and is now studying for postgraduate qualifications.
“We are all really passionate about eyes,” he said. “Being able to help people, like one lovely woman who was thrown out of her home for being blind, to regain her sight and witness her joy as she sees her new-born for the first time…that is what it’s all about.
“Regaining sight is so empowering at the personal, family and societal level.”
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