 Welcome to Leader's Room. He has been called the God of Vision. He has given the gift of sight to thousands of people, not just to those from Nepal, his home country, but to thousands of other people everywhere else in the world. Dr. Sanduk Ruhit is an ophthalmologist from Nepal who is using his own method of eye surgery to help thousands of people regain their vision prior to losing it to cataract. Dr. Sanduk Ruhit? Yes. Thank you for coming to the Eclipse Leader's Room. I would like to start by asking you, could you tell us a little bit about the Tilganga Eye Center in Nepal? How you came to be and what it has achieved so far? I'm honored to be here and thank you very much for inviting me. You're welcome. And the Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology was basically built to deliver cutting-edge ophthalmic care to patients in the community. In countries like Nepal, developing country. And it addresses the issues of the pain capacity of the people. We have a model which is a cross-subsidy model where we make patients, we encourage the patients to pay, and then that allows us to give and run the hospital for doing surgery on the free patients. And the whole concept is you must treat powerful people so that you can treat ably the powerless people. That's our motto. So what that means is those who can pay will pay. Yes. For those who cannot pay, don't have to. Don't have to pay. And there's a system how to look at it and that's one part of our service. The second part is we are very good in delivering community outreach programs. And we have done that globally in many parts of Asia and Africa. And this has been very effective and liked by our local partners because it is politically, socially, and logistically suitable and appropriate for many places. And it's a great example of south to south cooperation. The other thing that we do inside the Tilganga is a lot of training programs for doctors who are coming from all over the world to learn the surgical technique and also the system. Are these doctors coming from developing countries as well? Are they from all kinds of countries all over the world? They are mostly coming from developing countries. But now we have doctors coming from developed country who, if they want to go and work in developing countries, they first come and understand the system in our place for a few weeks and that primes them, makes them stronger to go to developing countries to work. It's very difficult for somebody who's trained in one of the best universities in the world and goes straight forward to do the work in a developing country. So it sort of teaches you the appropriate technology and other things there. Is it also because the technique that you are using right now is something that you yourself have invented some time back? The technique in question is the surgical technique for cataract. And that's modifying the small incision cataract surgery done manually and to do it in community in a large volume setup and to give the same comparable result as the most sophisticated ones done in the west. So that's the technique they come and learn. But they also come to learn how to deliver this eye care in other parts of the world. The logistics and the financial system of building team and the cross subsidy and even from infrastructure. And you are reaching out to quite a number of people right now because even as we speak, I was meant to understand there are more than 300 doctors have been trained under you who are now in various countries in Africa trying to do the same thing that you are doing in Nepal. There are, I would say, in fact more than 300 doctors who are now working in different parts of Africa, Asia and who have spent some time in our place and have gone back and instituting the system in their own place. Is it true that you actually started the eye care clinic not in your own country in Nepal but you started it in the country of Vietnam in the mid-90s? I find that a bit too explain why. What happened was as we perfected the technique in Nepal towards the late 80s and at that time I was the center of controversy because this new technique was not acceptable and most of my senior and my colleagues did like the way I was presenting it. So we had some training programs that we were putting together and one of the training programs in 1991 that Fred Hollows and I went to do was in Hanoi and later on in Saigon which is that we went to train the doctors in Vietnam. And keeping in mind Vietnam at that time is a far different country than what it is now. Totally different. It was right from the entry in the airport you could see the green barriers standing there and it was a totally different country. Interesting what happened was the training we did in Hanoi and I was doing surgical demonstration to the doctors there and they were used to use the total package of disposables and expensive equipments that were conventionally used in West. And very often Vietnam was using a lot of materials left over by the French doctors and one whole set would cost you a few thousand dollars. So for us to train the local doctors not to use those was a bit tricky. So we had to start slowly from using the whole set to using some sets as they saw in a video monitor how the surgery was being processed and half way we were able to discard a lot of the disposables that they were using and then what we really wanted was for them to see the post-op results next day. Once they saw the post-op results they were with us. So then I started sort of adapting more or less the system that we had and it became a heat and that was when the first 12 Vietnamese ophthalmologists were trained. Some are now the heads of big eye hospitals. How are they doing now? They are doing very, very good and this was the original surgical training of the Fred Hollows Foundation. Wow, it started in Vietnam? In Vietnam. No. In Nepal we were training of course, but in Vietnam we were very effectively went out and trained the doctors. That's right. I was reading something about your earlier life and there was a mention about the tragic passing of your beloved sister whom you were actually very, very close to due to a tuberculosis which did not respond well to medication anymore at this time. Did that have anything to do with you wanting to become a doctor and helping people like you are right now? Yeah. And you know my sister who was whom you mentioned was extremely close to me. How old was she when she passed out? When she passed away she was 15 and a half and I was getting closer to 17 and we were almost close as friends and you know more than sisters and a brother and see we were having a small room in Kathmandu as she was cooking for me and I used to go into the shopping so together we used to go to school and I used to go to school too. And you know at some stage she started developing a little loss of appetite and we found out later that she had tuberculosis. She was put on medication and after one year she didn't really respond to the medications and she needed a second line therapy for which we couldn't have resources to do that. So she passed away and you know when she passed away it was you know extremely I felt really bad and started thinking a lot and said you know people do die so young and especially the ones who are loved you know die so why do they die you know because of lack of medical care and that really really strongly inspired me and said maybe this is a line that I should take up and so from then onwards I stuck on to you know do everything to become a doctor. And how old were you when you had that idea? 17 and a half. That dream has never left you? Never, never ever left me and that's been a big you know you always need a big check up you know to create that determination you know so I think that was a great place for me to have that. Is that the same energy that continues to inspire you even now in your life right now? Yeah I mean you know but now after so many years what really inspires me is the way this is a branch of medicine that you can make so much difference in so many people's life at such a short time. And for example if you see that lady's face there looking at her child you know for the first time you know I mean what else you want? What powerful moments you want? So I consider myself extremely lucky to be part of it really. You grew up in a village which is about 14 to 15 days walking to school the closest school is about 14 days away. And yet you are what you are. And your father you say was a very small time trader who had the foresight of placing the right amount of importance and emphasis on education. What did you learn from your father? I learned that he was extremely focused in his vision and very high moral values, two things that I learned from him and you know it's so important to have a strong and clear and focused vision and I think in my case it was that vision that really gave me an opportunity to get into that first step of where I got now and I don't think I would have been this way I was probably been moving around in one of the shepherds in the village. So I think it's the focus on the vision and also his moral values I really consider it very high. Did he live long enough to see you achieve your dream? Yeah, he's still living. He's still living, he's 92, old, a little bit of dementia but he really feels very happy to see what I'm doing. A final question for you would be some of your patients when they first got the bandages taken off their eyes and the first person they see is you. Some of them broke into tears. Some of them call you like looking into the face of God and you've been called the God of vision. How does that make you feel? It embarrasses you and there are great moments when somebody is blinded for more than 10 years and then suddenly in such a short time comes up and sees everything and different ways of sort of ventilating. Like you say that in front of you, you're like a bright sunlight. Some use the word God on you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then some people say that I feel like I've come out of my womb. From a long sleep. Somebody says that and it's just beautiful, beautiful moments. There are so many stories and these are stories that I nurture and like I always carry them to recharge my battery. It's beautiful moments. In one of your earlier interviews, I remember you saying I've helped so many people regain their eyesight and you said that what more can you expect from life? I find that to be very inspiring and I'm so inspired by your presence today. Thank you for joining me. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me here and as I said I'm really honored to share my experience. The pleasure is mine.