Mercy Vision

During March of this year, a team from South Africa visited the Africa Mercy to assess the feasibility of creating an eye training programme for South African eye surgeons. The visit was a great success.

The first trainee of Mercy Vision South Africa, Dr. Gcobane Tuswa, is currently nearing the completion of his training programme.

Dr. Tuswa, who has been working with the South African Department of Ophthalmology since 2005, has undergone an intense but enlightening six weeks, working alongside and learning from eye surgeon Dr. Glenn Strauss.

Dr. Strauss has himself learnt and fine-tuned a procedure of cataract removal called MSICS (Manual Small Incision Cataract Surgery). The technique, which requires no sutures, is cost-effective and efficient, and allows for a high-volume turnover of patients. The knowledge he has to share is invaluable.

Dr. Tuswa described Dr. Strauss as a “fine surgeon and a good teacher.” The operating room environment Dr. Tuswa has been working in has surprised him. “We operate on more than thirty patients a day,” explained Dr. Tuswa, “and it is not at all stressful or strained.”

Though he could complete his daily load of surgeries in half a day, Dr. Strauss chooses to rather spend time practically training other surgeons to perform the method that he has mastered. This is conducted in a manner that Dr. Tuswa finds to be “fun and relaxed.”

Dr. Strauss does not merely have his trainees observe him at work, but rather, under his watchful guidance, gives them the opportunity to practice removing cataracts themselves. This gives the trainees a greater level of self-confidence and enables them to learn the procedure accurately. 

The procedure Dr. Tuswa has learnt and the experience he has acquired in his time onboard the Africa Mercy, will no doubt benefit thousands of needlessly blind individuals in South Africa.

“I will definitely be able to implement this technique back in South Africa and also teach others how to do it,” Dr. Tuswa said. “Though it is difficult to determine my future, I am focused on being rurally based and operating at a high volume.

With more than 160 000 South Africans totally blind from cataracts, and with up to 80% of the country’s population without access to private health care, the need for willing and capable eye surgeons like Dr. Tuswa is significant.