This article was found in Reader's Digest Jan 2006. I am very impressed by the revolutionary low-cost and fast method of removing cataract assembly style to restore sight brought by Dr. Sanduk Ruit to North Korea.
My mother went to a private clinic for her cataract removal in her sixties and it cost her about three thousand dollars twelve years ago. Two years later, she paid about four thousands for the other eye. I can sympathize with folks who are too poor to be able to afford the operation.
Dr Ruit developed this new method with Dr. Fred Hollows. They managed to shave off US$60 off the price of the intra-ocular lens to about US$5 each. Ruit perfected a "suture-less, self-sealing" cataract surgery technique while performing 75,000 operations in Kathmandu and throughout the Himalayas. This quick surgery costs as little as US$20 per patient. In a poor country like North Korea, it means people who are legally blind could regain their sight after undergoing the operation.
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