Project - Help Me See

Help Me See
helpmesee.org

See our updated report on the project completion.

HelpMeSee is trying to provide miracle surgery for every blind child and adult in the world who needs it regardless of where they live or how poor they may be. This lens replacement surgery is so simple, so quick and so safe, some surgeons can perform as many as 15,000 a year. Some hospitals perform hundreds of thousands of these surgeries. Forix will be funding the surgeries for 100 adults and 5 children in the Chitrakoot Area Hospital.

This is one of the most low-cost, high-impact medical interventions in the history of medicine. It involves removing a defective lens — which is causing the blindness — and replacing it with an artificial lens which can cost as little as $2. This artificial lens usually lasts a lifetime, and the majority of patients who undergo this surgery never have any problem with their eyesight again.

Total time 5-10 mins per eye. There aren’t stitches. The wound heals by itself. The surgeon simply bandages the eye to protect it. When the bandages are removed, the patient who was blind before surgery — can now see.

The heart and soul of the treatment program is the local surgeon in a developing country. 99% of all of the surgeries sponsored will be performed by local surgeons in local hospitals. By empowering local surgeons to set up their own practices and supporting local hospitals, self-sufficiency and sustainability is built in poor, but very proud communities, one surgery at a time.

By focusing on a single surgery and using leading edge technology such as a surgical simulator and computer-based training and education, 30,000 eye surgeons can be trained in less time than it takes to train one eye surgeon the old-fashioned way.