This Surgeon Has Restored Sight to 130,000 of Nepal’s Blind (youtube.com)
sammymammy2 | 5 days ago | 214 points

Why are there so many cataracts in Nepal?

cikaphu | 5 days ago | 243 points

Higher altitude higher exposure to UV which speeds up the formation of cataracts

Also probably genetics

This man is gods send

irish91 | 4 days ago | 4 points

Shit that makes me want to wear sunglasses more often

quietly41 | 4 days ago | 1 point

My contacts have UV protection, it makes me wonder what kind of impact it will have, I am never in the sun without them.

Lisrus | 5 days ago | -65 points

For real though. Fuck Jesus. What did that guy do? Die on a cross and make some wine out of blood?

This guy gave thousands their eyesight back. I almost thought it was like some kind of fake medicine with that number at first in disbelief.

Don't pray to Jesus. Pray to this guy

nightbefore2 | 4 days ago | 26 points

I mean, if you assume he made blood into wine then you’re recognizing that he performed miracles, and you’re ignoring all the ones where he healed people and brought people back from the dead lol

[deleted] | 4 days ago | 19 points


tokeyoh | 4 days ago | 1 point

That is assuming written history 2000 years ago is 100% accurate and unbiased

Hairy_S_TrueMan | 4 days ago | 2 points

Yeah whenever I read the Bible I think "if I know anything about real life, it has way more magic shit than this"

segagamer | 4 days ago | 1 point

And translated properly.

Where are the originals again?

jacobra94 | 4 days ago | -15 points

But you don't understand, Jesus is working through Dr. Ruit. Without Jesus, Dr. Ruit couldn't help anyone. Checkmate ya dingus

hedronist | 4 days ago | 2 points

And the Lord said, "Let no man refer to another as a dingus lest he become one himself."

And, lo, it came to pass that on ~9/11/2019 a new dingus came into being. And he was sad, and he repented, but the Lord was not moved.

Actually he did move, as told in the Book of McClean (@ 7:20), but that's a different chapter.

BagOnuts [1] | 4 days ago | 6 points

So brave.

DefenderOfDog | 4 days ago | 4 points

What kind of shepherd doesn't even have a dog

EvilTomte | 5 days ago | 6 points

Let's not pray to anyone.

FlaccidChicken | 4 days ago | 1 point

Pretty sure Jesus was an alcoholic so his blood made other people drunk. Basically red wine.

[deleted] | 4 days ago | 1 point

I want to ridicule you for being a stupid cunt, but Jesus taught me how to love so I won't.

Lisrus | 4 days ago | 0 points

It was a joke lol. You guys are so ridiculous.

[deleted] | 4 days ago | 1 point

I was joking too :]

Lisrus | 4 days ago | 1 point

Well played lol, I totally seez it now

Toxicity | 5 days ago | 69 points

Cataracts are the leading cause of blindness all over the world (around 45% of all cases). In most western countries the treatment is either cheap or covered by your insurance. The Himalayan Cataract Project isn't limited to just Nepal, they got programs in a lot of countries.

SnoT8282 | 4 days ago | 7 points

What cataracts are covered by insurance??? Shit I need to look into that then. I'm 37 and mine are making driving at night nearly impossible and I've pretty much stopped specially if I need to take my kids/wife somewhere I end up just having her drive at night. :-/

gnapster | 4 days ago | 7 points

I know it’s covered under Medicare (my mother had it fixed at 72 along with her prescription at the same time).

But you’re so young. Do you have insurance?

SnoT8282 | 4 days ago | 3 points

I do and actually until the end of the year covered by 2 different medical and vision insurances.

Soren_Aabye | 4 days ago | 8 points

Sounds like you better...look into it.

barre_chord_reality | 4 days ago | 4 points

All cataracts are covered by health insurance. They can do a visual acuity test, and also a glare test to determine if you're a candidate or not. If you can't see 20/40 with correction, or worse with the glare test, then your insurance typically covers it. Sometimes a prior authorization is required.

FerretHydrocodone | 4 days ago | 1 point

It would be very uncommon for cataracts to not be covered by insurance in the US.

I’m sure there might be a few specific insurance plans that don’t cover it for whatever reason... but that isn’t the norm. You should double check.

jonovan | 3 days ago | 1 point

Well, that really depends on your definition of blindness, but yes, cataracts are a big cause of vision loss. According to the World Health Organization, more than 80% of all vision impairment can be prevented or cured globally.

According to the WHO, the two major global causes of moderate to severe vision impairment are:

uncorrected refractive errors, 53%

un-operated cataract, 25%

and the three major causes of blindness are:

un-operated cataract, 35%

uncorrected refractive error, 21%

glaucoma, 8%

Also, 90% of visually impaired people live in low- and middle-income countries.

ultimatescar | 5 days ago | -9 points

they got programs in a lot of countries

You mean 5 countries? Nepal, China, india, Bhutan n Pakisthan

Dragon_Fisting | 4 days ago | 6 points

Which is all 5 countries in the Himalayan region.

ultimatescar | 4 days ago | -3 points

Lot sounded like alot... proly probably more than 5....

FerretHydrocodone | 4 days ago | 1 point

I’m not trying to be patronizing here, I apologize if I am. But, people are going to automatically assume you’re an idiot and are considerably less likely to listen to you if you say/type “proly” or “prolly” instead of probably.

banus | 4 days ago | 0 points

Well, that would be just shy of 3 billion people, so...

AlaWyrm | 4 days ago | 13 points

Because they can't import any Mercedes.

ticklemahcow | 4 days ago | 5 points

BOOOoooooooooooooooo. /r/dadjokes

GuyanaFlavorAid | 4 days ago | 3 points

God bless you, wonderful work you're doing! This pleases me. Lol

OSUfan88 | 4 days ago | 2 points

Jesus christ this is a good dad joke!

insaneintheblain | 4 days ago | 4 points

A lot of poor people work outdoors - things like UV, toxins (from pollutants from corporations who don't care about where they dump their excess, as long as no one complains - and the poor have very little voice), smoking and alcohol are big issues in poorer communities. And diet, of course.

That's the thing about poverty. It's gruelling to the body.

Ubernaga | 5 days ago | 8 points

The coffee in Nepal is far hotter.

PunYouUp | 4 days ago | 1 point

To add on to what everyone else has said, essentially everybody gets cataracts if they live long enough. Average age of surgery for it in the US is around 70 (iirc).

arskatesto2 | 5 days ago | 1 point

All the patients seem to be extremely old so it's not really an issue either.

If it started making babies blind now that'd be an issue.

apurplepeep | 4 days ago | 3 points

why do you think it's not an issue? like quality of life is deserved by old people as well, and as you've seen they can still work to support themselves otherwise, so...? what are you trying to say here?

FerretHydrocodone | 4 days ago | 1 point

That’s such a messed up thing to say....

I have a feeling your mind is going to change on that once you yourself are elderly.

nickstatus | 5 days ago | 85 points

130,000 is a lot. That's like 9 ish everyday day for 40 years.

Nuckin_futs_ | 5 days ago | 32 points

Or 18 a day for 20 years

deRoyLight | 5 days ago | 122 points

Or 130,000 in a day.

MrBoringxD | 5 days ago | 25 points

This man restores blindness

IsThisMeta | 4 days ago | 5 points

Help! I’ve lost my blindness!

EquinsuOcha | 4 days ago | 1 point

Where did you look last?

dirty_ronin | 4 days ago | 2 points

Only? This lazy bum!

gin_and_toxic | 4 days ago | 2 points

Use AoE spell

bites [1] | 4 days ago | 1 point
memoflex | 4 days ago | 16 points

I thought the same. Say 1.5 hours for each patient, he said he works up to 13 hours a day that’s 8.6 or say 9 a day. That’s 40+ years working 7 days a week. Bit exaggerated.

Great work still.

no-more-throws | 4 days ago | 54 points

Surprisingly enough, seems to be real. The guy basically invented and refined this technique, and seems to take some five minutes each. In his mobile clinics he takes to remote areas, at that rate he alone could do some 300 ppl in a two day weekend. And they go out with his assistants where they are working in parallel for prep/cleanup etc.

Here's a NY Times article from 2015 where his count seems to be upto 120k.. could he have added another 10k in 4 years at that rate, probably.

Seems remarkable.. here's some quotes from the NYT article:



This system impresses experts around the world. Dr. David F. Chang, a past president of the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery, describes Dr. Ruit as “one of the most important ophthalmologists in the world.”


PTVA | 4 days ago | 8 points

No exaggeration. They have developed a surgery that can be done in under 10 minutes. They queue the patient up so he just walks from procedure room to procedure room performing the surgery. Setup and cleanup is handled while he is onto the next surgery. It's quite remarkable.

R--NH2 | 4 days ago | 12 points

Cataract surgery takes ~10-15 minutes for an experienced surgeon. I'm assuming he had assistants do at least some of pre- and post- op workup. Overall, he could probably finish up a patient in less than 45min of his own time.

PTVA | 4 days ago | 14 points

Much less than that. They run multiple procedure rooms at the cataract camp. The surgeon goes room to room performing the surgery which takes between 5 and 10 minutes and then they head to the next room while the cleanup/setup takes place in the room that was just used. It's like an assembly line.

thisonehereone | 4 days ago | 3 points

I don't know that I've eaten 130,000 potato chips in my life. And I'm no chip slouch.

tempskawt | 4 days ago | -2 points

Not to downplay his work, but you've got to remember surgery is a pretty broad term that can mean anything from non invasive 5 minute surgeries to several hour brain surgeries. His surgeries are probably very short. I've got a friend in Brazil that got Lasik and he described the process as something similar to the DMV. You come in one day, they spend 20-30 minutes figuring out what's wrong with your eyes and scheduling the actual surgery. Then you come in, wait in line, and you get your operation which takes about total 20-30 minutes. Go home, recover, come back, verify it worked. Not quite as involved as getting your hip replaced or a tumor removed but similarly important.

ValorousVagabond | 5 days ago | 79 points

This man and his work is truly beautiful. Unless reddit ruins it for me somehow, as I've been trained to expect.

grumpypenguin1 | 5 days ago | 129 points

He's actually the one that blinded them

ValorousVagabond | 5 days ago | 39 points

Called it.

PoorSketchArtist | 4 days ago | 12 points

He was there to molest children

-Elon Musk probably

PhasmaFelis | 5 days ago | 23 points

It's all true, but he's a fan of that thing you hate.

chewymammoth | 4 days ago | 10 points

He probably prefers his toilet paper to be hung the wrong way, the bastard

FerretHydrocodone | 4 days ago | 2 points

I keep my toilet paper in the freezer. Ice bum in the morning really helps you wake up in a refreshing way ❄️

PhasmaFelis | 4 days ago | 1 point

Man, fuck that guy!

CJKay93 | 4 days ago | 5 points


PhasmaFelis | 4 days ago | 4 points

Sure, that works.

Nonix7 | 5 days ago | 7 points

He uses a philosopher stone to cure them

Comrade2k7 | 4 days ago | 3 points

He’s actually sick right now. Hope he recovers. Dengue.

kingeryck | 4 days ago | 2 points

Every village has to give him a child to do with as he pleases.

power_change | 4 days ago | 1 point

He even went to North Korea to do these surgeries. And the treated people thanked great leaders photo for restoring the eye sight.

El_Hugo | 4 days ago | -1 points

He saves 130000 but killed 13000000 during the procedures.

relocopter | 5 days ago | 26 points

If you are interested in donating to a nonprofit that helps restore sight to those without means or access to it this is a great nonprofit.


100% of donations go to care as they have a great organization model that has staff funded by other revenue.

Rex_Deserved_It | 3 days ago | 1 point

Still seems easier to have Charlie Chaplin fall in love with you.

relocopter | 3 days ago | 1 point

Wow, that is quite an esoteric reference for lowly old reddit.

Hellothereawesome | 5 days ago | 9 points

One of the most beautiful videos I've seen recently, Thanks for sharing :D

aumin | 5 days ago | 8 points

130.000? That's insane. How is it even possible?

zebediah49 | 4 days ago | 17 points

The answer is by developing a new technique (along with another guy, Fred Hollows) for doing this quickly and efficiently.

MSICS is quite quick, which means (as long as someone else can do the anaesthetic, pre- and post-work), it takes like 5 minutes. Here's a video (NSFL warning: eye surgery) outlining the process, though I think that video uses a couple more steps than Ruit does. (I'm guessing that after doing 100k of them, he's really good at it...).

Slice, Yoink, Squish, NEXT!

trc_IO | 4 days ago | 5 points

Fred Hollows

Oh shit, that's the Fred Hollows. Dude's a legend in his own right.

aumin | 4 days ago | 4 points

Damn that's quick!

The WHO efforts have brought a dramatic change in cataract surgical volumes. Natchiar et al. have advocated a high-volume, high-quality cataract surgery approach to maximize the productivity of a particular surgeon.[48] Aravind Eye Hospital, Madurai, Tamil Nadu, is utilizing such a high-volume system in South India for more than a decade. Venkatesh et al. published a study on the outcome of 593 cataract surgeries performed in Aravind Eye Hospital by three surgeons utilizing this approach and reported an average surgical time of 3.75 min, i.e., 16–18 cases/hour.[41]

MSICS takes less time than phaco. Ruit et al. and Gogate et al. reported mean surgical time of approximately 15.5 min for phaco and 9 min for MSICS.[33,49] High-volume delivery system reduces the time for a MSICS to <4.5 min.


lamezor | 5 days ago | 6 points

Says near the end of the video: the organization has trained "nearly 650 doctors" to do the surgery.

aumin | 4 days ago | 3 points

Yes, but rewind to 0:12

lamezor | 4 days ago | 7 points

Oh shit you're right, that's crazy. Apparently it's only a 15 minute surgery, so I guess if he has other doctors and nurses doing the prep and after care it makes it a little more reasonable. Still ~32'500 hours of surgery, what a champ.

kingeryck | 4 days ago | 1 point

He must be the best eye surgeon in the world at this point.

FerretHydrocodone | 4 days ago | 2 points

It depends. He’s probably the best at this specific type of surgery for sure, not doubt. But if he’s almost exclusively performing this specific eye surgery he may be out of practice on other types of eye surgery. I would guess that someone who is well practice in all sorts of types of eye surgery is probably the best (and he may actually be, I don’t know).

blackstoise | 5 days ago | 2 points

If you live in high density population areas with high rates of certain ailments, this is possible. I personally know a laparoscopic surgeon in India who does ~1400-1500 gastroenterology surgeries a year. The demand for doctors in India/Nepal/Bangladesh is much higher than the supply, so the ones who are practicing often have to take on extreme workloads.

Xx69JdawgxX | 4 days ago | 2 points

That's 4 or 5 a day! Jesus.

blackstoise | 4 days ago | 1 point

Yup, most of them are fairly quick, but he does work 6 days a week. Probably around 70 hours a week.

jussikol | 4 days ago | 12 points

There was a documentary about a doctor that was allowed in North Korea to help fix cataracts in people. He got the surgery down to literally a few minutes per eye. When the patients could see again they immediately dropped to their knees and thanked the "Supreme Leader" for his generosity in giving them their sight back. It actually made me angry watching it.

el_caliente | 4 days ago | 9 points

That is the same doctor that's in this film: Dr. Sanduk Ruit.

FerretHydrocodone | 4 days ago | 1 point

There’s definitely tons of crazy bullshit going on in North Korea and they probably pump out more propaganda than any other country. But do remember that there’s propaganda from both sides. A lot of what you hear on US news (or in documentaries) about North Korea actually isn’t true, or leaves out major details. I’ve been to North Korea several times now (even outside of Pyongyang) and it absolutely not what you would expect if you’ve watched Vice documentaries on the subject.


The North Korea you often see portrayed in the media is pretty close to how it was in the 90’s, but it’s changed a lot since then, especially since Kim Jong Un came into power.

chrisfree123 | 4 days ago | 6 points

The power of one individual, what a beast.

apurplepeep | 4 days ago | 1 point

the best part is him training hundreds of other doctors, his good deeds just spread and spread and spread

reminds me of Norman Borlaug who is credited through his work of saving close to a billion people.

RnK_Clan | 5 days ago | 2 points

this is what life should be about, being a superhero.

DiscombobulatedCook0 | 4 days ago | 2 points

This man is a true hero

deelege | 5 days ago | 2 points

Amazing is the word for those angels with scalpels in hands.... greetings for longevity

ageofthoughts | 4 days ago | 4 points

The word is actually doctor.

insaneintheblain | 4 days ago | 1 point

My heart sent shivers down my spine.

lightningusagi | 4 days ago | 1 point

There's a wonderful documentary about this doctor called Out of the Darkness. The full video is available on Youtube, and well worth the watch.

Fryboy11 | 4 days ago | 1 point

This video is Great Big Story monetizing what should be a simple call for charity. Instead they ignore the host and ask you donate to them, who barely spend anything on charity.

dangoodspeed | 4 days ago | 1 point

Did he just say "I have these big eye-opening festivals"?

ola0711 | 4 days ago | 1 point

Fred Hollows - I`m amazed at how similar these two people are - so much respect for these guys!

PeterMus | 3 days ago | 1 point

Both of my parents had cataract surgery in both eyes. It's amazing to think a person could lose their sight for such an insignificant procedure in modern medicine.

But people all over the world die due to circumstances which don't phase people in wealthy countries.

Magikpoo | 5 days ago | 1 point

I was going to say "Charity starts at home" but i live in the USA where charity is tax deducible and rich investors in insurance wouldn't want to compete with rational thinking.

TheNaughtyMonkey | 5 days ago | 1 point

I wonder how many free eye surgeries Sen. Rand Paul has perfromed?

nickstatus | 5 days ago | 1 point

I mean, is he an eye surgeon?

TheNaughtyMonkey | 5 days ago | 12 points

Yes, he is. And every year he takes his vacation in a country like Honduras or Haiti, and performs eye surgeries. Been doing it for years, doesn't make a big deal out of it.

He also performs pro bono surgeries in Kentucky.


Not sure if he can still do this, after the attack and ensuing health issues (Recently had part of his lung removed.)

You can agree or disagree with his politics, but he is a decent human being.

trc_IO | 4 days ago | 5 points

To be honest, your opening comment sounds like your preparing to mock him for being some kind of scrooge.

Avant_guardian1 | 4 days ago | -4 points

“ without financial incentive no one would be a doctor”

  • neolibrals.
MonsterCalvesMcSmith | 4 days ago | -3 points

Don't be a dumbass: Don't repost.

altruisticy | 5 days ago | -14 points

Sounds too good to be true. Maybe he got the price cut down to $3 but still charges $100...

Revolyze | 5 days ago | 5 points

You think those really old people living in poverty in some super rural places can afford $100 in huge groups like that? I'd be surprised if they could even get them to undergo the procedure if it wasn't free considering how old people tend to shy away from risky or scary things.

He's probably funded to do this. If he makes a good amount of money for helping out 100,000+ people then good for him.

blurader | 5 days ago | 1 point

I can fathom how someone can perform 130,000 operations. I don't think I've eaten than many meals in my life and I'm nearly 40.

blackstoise | 5 days ago | 1 point

I replied above, but these numbers happen in places like India/Nepal/Bangladesh where the demand for doctors/treatment heavily outweighs the supply. So each individual doctor ends up working extreme workloads.

longtimegoneMTGO | 4 days ago | 1 point

Assuming no complications, the average cataract surgery only takes about 10 minutes, so that probably helps.

altruisticy | 4 days ago | -2 points

whoa guys -- settle down. where's your sense of humor?

its probably closer to $200