Dr David Worsnop from Dandenong’s South Eastern Eye Surgery and his wife Juliana will fly to Vietnam next month to perform 600 free cataract surgeries on Vietnamese people.
By Shaun Inguanzo
A DANDENONG eye specialist and his wife will perform 600 free cataract surgeries in Vietnam next month.
Specialist doctor David Worsnop and wife Juliana, a GP, will fly to Vietnam in late August as part of the Vietnam Vision Project with a team of leading Australian eye specialists, optometrists and nurses.
Dr Worsnop said the team would spend 10 days performing 600 cataract surgeries on disadvantaged Vietnamese people who had been blinded in both eyes by cataracts.
The procedure takes 10 minutes and involves surgeons removing the clouded lens and replacing it with a clear, artificial lens.
Dr Worsnop said Vietnam’s impoverishing conditions contributed to a high rate of cataracts.
“Malnutrition and sun exposure without having sunglasses can bring it on, and age is the biggest factor,” he said. “Trauma can also bring it on. Last year a 12-year-old boy was pecked in the eye by a pelican and we operated on him.”
Dr Worsnop said the surgeons and medical staff paid their own way to Vietnam.
Rotary and Australian medical companies make financial contributions to he project, Dr Worsnop said, which went directly to the surgeries. The team of 40 people will travel to central Vietnam and then to Saigon to perform the operations.
Vietnamese medical staff will help determine who is eligible to receive the free surgery.
