美国国家公共电台 NPR A 4-Minute Surgery That Can Give Sight To The Blind

 

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

Now to Ethiopia where recently, hundreds of blind people arrived at a remote hospital. They were hoping for a miracle, the ability to see again. For a week, the hospital compound held a campaign to remove cataracts², the world's leading cause of blindness. NPR's Jason Beaubien reports.

JASON BEAUBIEN, BYLINE³: The courtyard of the Bisidimo Hospital complex outside the eastern Ethiopian city of Harar is packed with people, many of them with milky⁴ white eyes.

TEKETEL MATHIWOS: We have, like, 700, 800 patients already in the compound. And there are many more others that are appointed for tomorrow and the day after.

BEAUBIEN: Teketel Mathiwos is with the Himalayan Cataract¹ Project, which is hosting this week-long cataract surgery campaign. People hoping to get their sight restored wait in long lines outside the hospital's operating room. Others spill out of an office where optometrists⁵ are screening the patients, checking their eyes and overall health ahead of surgery. Mathiwos says some patients may have to wait a day or two to get the free procedure.

MATHIWOS: They spend the night. So they have tents here, so they spend in the tents their nights. We give them the food to eat, and we try to take care of them as much as we can.

BEAUBIEN: Cataracts are a condition where the natural lens in a person's eye grows opaque⁶. Surgery to repair this consists of removing the damaged lens and replacing it with a clear, plastic one.

MATT OLIVA: Saline and injections.

BEAUBIEN: In the main operating room at the hospital, Matt Oliva, an ophthalmologist from Oregon, is peering through a microscope as he makes a small incision⁷ into the eye of a patient on the table in front of him.

OLIVA: So then I make a linear opening in the bag that holds the cataract in place.

BEAUBIEN: Oliva has been a board member of the Himalayan Cataract Project for more than a decade. He regularly does mass surgical⁸ campaigns like this one in Asia and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa.

OLIVA: And the trick is to gently remove the cataract and leave the bag, which holds the lens in place, intact so I can put the new artificial plastic lens right in the exact same spot.

BEAUBIEN: This surgery took him just over four minutes. Some more complicated cases take a bit longer. Oliva, along with three local surgeons, can remove and replace as many as 300 cataracts a day. One of those surgeons, Mulu Lisanekwork, says the problem of cataracts in Africa is linked to the lack of eye doctors. She points out that there's only 110 ophthalmologists in Ethiopia or roughly one for every 1 million residents. And she says the untreated blindness contributes to poverty in her country.

MULU LISANEKWORK: Because people stop being productive when they get cataracts. Not only that, people who are productive in the family decrease their productivity because they have to take care of their blind family members.

BEAUBIEN: The next morning, the patients gather on long benches in the courtyard of the hospital. The doctors and nurses start removing bandages from the patients' eyes and checking to see how well they're healing. As Dr. Oliva pulls the gauze off Alimi Hassen's eyes, the 80-year-old leaps from the bench as if startled by an apparition⁹.

OLIVA: (Laughter).

BEAUBIEN: Hassen twirls around to take in the scene in the courtyard. As Oliva laughs, Hassen hugs the doctor. Hassen had been blind for seven years. The women next to him, their eyes still covered, begin ululating.

UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: (Singing in foreign language).

BEAUBIEN: As more and more bandages are peeled off, family members of the patients start singing and dancing. Several patients experiment with putting one hand over one eye, then the other, checking out their restored sight. The Himalayan Cataract Project covers all the costs of this event, including paying staff, renting equipment, transporting patients back and forth¹⁰ to their villages, which Dr. Oliva says breaks down to just $75 per patient.

OLIVA: Seventy-five dollars, you can take someone who's blind and give them sight again - remarkably¹¹ cost-effective health intervention¹².

(SOUNDBITE OF CHICKENS CLUCKING)

BEAUBIEN: Amina Ahmed, who's in her 60s, has just returned home from the Bisidimo Hospital after having cataracts removed from both of her eyes.

AMINA AHMED: (Through interpreter) When I went to the hospital, I couldn't see anything. Now I can see everything, and I'm very happy. I can see the faces of everybody.

BEAUBIEN: Her 2-year-old great-grandson, wearing a torn T-shirt and no pants, jumps into her lap to welcome her home.

AHMED: (Through interpreter) Initially¹³, I could only hear his voice. I knew him through his voice. Now I can see his face, everything. And I'm very happy.

BEAUBIEN: Ahmed had been totally blind for about four years, she says. But she adds that her eyesight had been slowly failing her before that. Her family says it's been very hard to look after her in recent years. Ahmed's niece, Asha Yussuf, says they even had to keep the chickens away from her.

ASHA YUSSUF: (Through interpreter) The food that we serve her, the chickens come. They drink her tea, they eat her food. And we tell her to cover herself up and eat so that she can eat without the chickens.

BEAUBIEN: Her family members laugh about this story in part because they're relieved that they won't have to worry about her so much anymore. Ahmed's children say the cataract surgery didn't just change their mom's life, it changed the whole family's. Jason Beaubien, NPR News, Harar, Ethiopia.

1 cataract   

n.大瀑布，奔流，洪水，白内障

参考例句：

• He is an elderly gentleman who had had a cataract operation.他是一位曾经动过白内障手术的老人。
• The way is blocked by the tall cataract.高悬的大瀑布挡住了去路。

2 cataracts   

n.大瀑布( cataract的名词复数 )；白内障

参考例句：

• The rotor cataracts water over the top of the machines. 回转轮将水从机器顶上注入。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Cataracts of rain flooded the streets. 倾盆大雨弄得街道淹水。 来自辞典例句

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 milky   

adj.牛奶的，多奶的；乳白色的

参考例句：

• Alexander always has milky coffee at lunchtime.亚历山大总是在午餐时喝掺奶的咖啡。
• I like a hot milky drink at bedtime.我喜欢睡前喝杯热奶饮料。

5 optometrists   

n.验光师，视力测定者( optometrist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• It's been proven by the greatest optometrists. 这可是最伟大的配镜师验证肯定了的。 来自辞典例句
• Don't worry, Miss. We have qualified optometrists here an eye test now. 这个好些，我想把镜片也换上，可惜没有带视力记录来。 来自互联网

6 opaque   

adj.不透光的；不反光的，不传导的；晦涩的

参考例句：

• The windows are of opaque glass.这些窗户装着不透明玻璃。
• Their intentions remained opaque.他们的意图仍然令人费解。

7 incision   

n．切口，切开

参考例句：

• The surgeon made a small incision in the patient's cornea.外科医生在病人的眼角膜上切开一个小口。
• The technique involves making a tiny incision in the skin.这项技术需要在皮肤上切一个小口。

8 surgical   

adj.外科的，外科医生的，手术上的

参考例句：

• He performs the surgical operations at the Red Cross Hospital.他在红十字会医院做外科手术。
• All surgical instruments must be sterilised before use.所有的外科手术器械在使用之前，必须消毒。

9 apparition   

n.幽灵，神奇的现象

参考例句：

• He saw the apparition of his dead wife.他看见了他亡妻的幽灵。
• But the terror of this new apparition brought me to a stand.这新出现的幽灵吓得我站在那里一动也不敢动。

10 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

11 remarkably   

ad.不同寻常地，相当地

参考例句：

• I thought she was remarkably restrained in the circumstances. 我认为她在那种情况下非常克制。
• He made a remarkably swift recovery. 他康复得相当快。

12 intervention   

n.介入，干涉，干预

参考例句：

• The government's intervention in this dispute will not help.政府对这场争论的干预不会起作用。
• Many people felt he would be hostile to the idea of foreign intervention.许多人觉得他会反对外来干预。

13 initially   

adv.最初，开始

参考例句：

• The ban was initially opposed by the US.这一禁令首先遭到美国的反对。
• Feathers initially developed from insect scales.羽毛最初由昆虫的翅瓣演化而来。