1. Cataract Surgery

2. What might it be like to live with cataracts?
Practical Exercise
What might it be like to live with cataracts?
Notes for teacher:
Use this exercise to demonstrate what it might be like to be temporarily visually impaired.
Go to Teachers Resources 1d for template of Cataract mask and instructions.

3. Cataract Surgery
The cataract lens which has caused the eye to become cloudy is replaced by a plastic lens called an Intraocular Lens, or IOL.

4. What’s an Intraocular Lens?
The Intraocular Lens (IOL) is a small plastic lens with plastic side struts to hold the lens in place when it’s implanted into the eye.
Intraocular lenses are vital for restoring sight to people with cataracts.

5. How is the surgery performed?
Before the surgery, the pupil of the eye is dilated with eye drops to expose the cloudy lens.
The eye is numbed and unable to move.
The patient remains awake.
The eye is clamped open.
A cut is made just below the clear covering of the iris and pupil.
This cut will be self healing and will not require stitching.

6. The cataract lens is removed.
An intraocular lens (IOL) will replace it and restore the eye’s focussing power.
This lens will stay in the patient’s eye for their lifetime.
The eye is bandaged with an eye patch to prevent infection or injury.
The bandage will be removed within 24 hours and sight will be restored.

7. Watch this patient story on cataract surgery.
Patient Cataract Surgery
Watch this patient story on cataract surgery.

8. Viewing sheet
Answer these questions once you have watched the patient story
What caused Nawere and Timwias’ blindness?
How has their blindness impacted their lives?
How has their blindness impacted their mental and emotional health?
How did they feel when their sight was restored?
How will their lives be different now?
Notes for teacher:
Teacher to discuss with students how they feel about the patient story they just watched. Students could think about their own elderly relative who would have access to medical care in New Zealand, their relative wouldn’t have to sit in darkness for two years until they could make it to an outreach clinic.

9. Fred Hollows & Cataract Surgery
The Fred Hollows Foundation NZ uses Intraocular Lenses in their sight-saving cataract surgeries.
But if these lenses were made in New Zealand they would cost hundreds of dollars to manufacture.
As you have learned their founder Fred Hollows knew this and did something about it!
Notes for teacher:
Treatment in developed countries like New Zealand is more expensive because it uses different techniques with more advanced and costly equipment. Therefore it’s impossible to compare with developing countries.

10. Fred Hollows & Cataract Surgery
In the last years of his life, Fred Hollows worked hard to open factories in two developing countries. One year after he passed away, two laboratories were opened in Eritrea and Nepal.
Fred holding an IOL

11. Fred Hollows & Cataract Surgery
To date, the laboratories have manufactured over four million lenses that are used locally and exported to more than 40 countries.
In some countries like the Pacific Islands and Papua New Guinea, The Foundation can restore sight for as little as $25.

12. What’s the difference between a cataract procedure in a developing country and New Zealand?
In these countries people may be living on only a few dollars a day.
If you look at the $25 it costs for an operation as a percentage of their yearly income it can be similar to the amount it costs in New Zealand.
To compare – the surgery costs approximately $3,500 in New Zealand, where the average yearly income is around $50,000.

13. Patient stories Link to current patient stories on
The Fred Hollows Foundation NZ website.
Note to teacher:
Additional exercise if required.
Students can chose another patient for a case study, using the same viewing sheet questions which can be adapted as needed.