The Barefoot Surgeon
Page 25
patient, Chandra Maya, who is in a state of abject misery as
she waits for her operation. Chandra has not only lost her
sight, she is deaf and mute as well. Her face is as expression-less as a stone. She is about as utterly withdrawn from life as someone can be. As the pre- operation nurse examined her, it
was hard to tell if she was asleep or awake.
Trapped in a silent dark world, her only guide is her husband Suresh. His weathered face, already etched with hardship
from a life as a subsistence farmer, is creased with worry.
Since Chandra went blind more than a year ago, he has had
to take over his wife’s role looking after their four grandchildren, who were left in the couple’s care after their daughter died. He’s had to stop farming to run the household. Their
income has shrunk. In villages like Chandra’s in northern
India, where women are the lynchpin of the household, you
can only imagine how devastating the blow of blindness is,
and how demeaning it is for her not to be able to carry out
her usual household tasks.
The surgical team’s immediate problem, however, is how to
prepare Chandra for surgery. Suresh gently strokes his wife’s hand, but no-one is able to tell her what’s about to happen.
‘Operating on ladies like this is very difficult,’ Ruit says.
‘That’s when I need a truly caring team around me. How do
you communicate to someone like that that we are going to
operate on her eyes? Often it is through touch. It is really only because my team is so special that we can do things like this.’
At first, the nurses and local monks who have put away
their prayer beads to help with the patients have trouble
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block behind her eyes. She struggles and squirms, especially
when they place a green hospital drape over her face. Then,
a little miracle occurs; slowly, quietly, the nurses calm her down by gently stroking her face and hands. One nurse lifts up the green surgical drapes covering her head, and whispers in
her ear, hoping the vibrations reassure her. It works. Without words, without sight, Chandra has somehow understood that
she is being cared for, and she calms down, lying still on the operating table so that Ruit can get to work.
Ten minutes later, the operation is finished, and her
husband leads her out of the operating theatre.
The fact that a special visitor is arriving is also creating a buzz of anticipation.
Princess Beatrice, the 28- year- old eldest daughter of Prince Andrew and Sarah, Duchess of York, has decided to come
calling and see Ruit’s work up close. Ruit quickly nodded
in agreement when one of his supporters, the British film
producer and businessman Simon Franks, mentioned he’d
like to bring along the British princess, one of his and his
wife’s friends, to watch Ruit’s life- transforming surgery.
Princess Beatrice, seventh in line to the British throne, is
not the first high- profile person to show interest in Ruit’s work. ‘For some reason, people seem to believe in my work,’
Ruit says. ‘Somehow I feel there is something in me that
people believe. I’m not sure what it is. You’d have to ask them yourself. They seem to believe I am stable and sincere, and
I have some potential. They can see that I’m going to carry
out future projects. I’ve found that by simply staying with my work, staying transparent, and keeping everyone up to date,
people tend to stick with me. They believe in the work. They
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can see how focused I am, and that my direction is very clear, and that even though there are going to be hurdles, I’m going to overcome them.’
Princess Beatrice has lent her profile to several worthy
causes, but she’d certainly never made such a bone- jarring
road trip for charity before. Every security measure has been followed, and her bodyguard, Dominic Ryan, who was the
former bodyguard of Prince Charles, stays within a metre of
her side the entire trip. But no bodyguard can protect a princess from the nausea- inducing hairpin bends of the seventeen- hour mountain road from Kathmandu to Kalimpong.
Over dinner that night, the princess is bright- eyed and
good- humoured, and talks of how much she enjoys her work
in New York as a management consultant, well away from
the prying eyes of the British media.
The princess’s visit is certainly not incognito in Kalim-
pong. The whole town is buzzing with anticipation. Every
Indian and Nepali newspaper ran front pages of her visit to
the Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology in Kathmandu a few
days earlier.
Among the Nepalese chatter, you can frequently hear the
word ‘princess’. Balconies have been given a lick of fresh paint, and the highway is checked by police as the princess’s entou-rage grinds its way up the last several hundred kilometres of serpentine road. On a tour of Tilganga, she had admired the
‘Robin Hood effect’ it provides, whereby free treatment and
surgery is offered to tens of thousands of people a year, subsi-dised by the patients with good incomes who can afford it.
Shortly before her arrival, several red- robed monks from
Jamgon Kongtrul’s nearby monastery formed a welcoming
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party, bringing giant Tibetan drums, long trumpets, and
incense into the courtyard. The orphans, thrilled to have the morning off school, and to meet a real live princess, scampered about in sequinned Indian saris. Ruit watched this
scene of mayhem with amusement from the balcony above,
and said jokingly, ‘Why don’t they organise something like
that for me when I turn up, hey? Do I have to be a prince to
receive such a welcome?’
When the princess’s white LandCruiser finally pulled up to
a halt in the courtyard, she emerged from the small cramped
seat in the back cabin. As she explained rather charmingly
later: ‘I was smallest of the group, so it was best for me to take the smallest space.’ The orphans went wild with excitement,
festooning her with so many traditional scarves of welcome
that she almost disappeared under white silk.
She’s a seasoned speechmaker and before she’s even had
time to sit down to lunch, she gives a press conference for the coterie of reporters and cameramen gathered on the lawn.
‘I’m really interested in promoting community eye centres
like this one. To travel with Dr Ruit into the field like this is a huge opportunity and honour. I am so lucky to have had
the opportunity to come and see the great work that is being
done on the ground. It’s a great chance to see the difference that can really be made. There was a young boy in Kathmandu who had a double cornea operation, and seeing how
sight has transformed his life is a true inspiration.’
Ruit didn’t hear a word. He was already back inside the
operating theatre, having resumed the day’s caseload of more
than 70 patients. Before he went into the surgery, he care-
fully picked up his plastic sandals and took them with him,
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keeping them close by. At a previous camp, he’d left them in
the changing room outside with everyone else’s shoes, and
they’d gone missing. ‘Nanda will be very cross with me if I lose another pair,’ he says sheepishly.
At dinner that night, he’s completely at ease with the princess but looks down bashfully when she stands at the head of the
table and praises his work.
‘I thought it was fantastic for someone like that to come all that way to see our work and see how she could help,’ Ruit
says later. ‘I thought it showed great commitment from her
side. For somebody who was born in the best- dressed circles
to come to meet people who are blind and almost bedridden
was wonderful. She has come from one extreme of the world
to the other.’
The next day, the patches are taken off Chandra with
about 70 other patients. The ‘Patches Off’ ceremony, as it’s
known (even in Nepalese), is usually a spine- tingling half
hour held every morning at the camps, and this one is partic-
ularly moving. It’s a cool morning, and the ramparts of the
Himalayas are swathed in mist.
The air is filled with excitement and anticipation as the
patients sit quietly together on plastic chairs in the courtyard, still bandaged and patched. There is an extra frisson in the air as Princess Beatrice arrives to witness yesterday’s work. Ruit is particularly keen to see the results of his handiwork on
Chandra. After he unwinds her bandages, she looks confused,
then almost wonderstruck as her line of vision slowly expands and she realises she can see the woman sitting next to her, and then, a metre away, standing right in front of her, her devoted husband Suresh. She starts nodding and smiling, seemingly
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unable to believe her good luck. Princess Beatrice leans in,
obviously impressed by this stirring scene.
‘It was at that moment you suddenly understand the
dramatic impact of Dr Ruit’s work. It was incredibly moving,’
she says later. ‘Having the chance to see first- hand Dr Ruit restoring a person’s sight was truly remarkable.’
But it is Ruit’s smile that is the widest. Thinlay puts it this way: ‘This is it. This is what Dr Ruit loves. He loves to be with his patients. You can see it gives him such great satisfaction and that’s what he really thrives on. It means much more to
him than fame or money. That smile from the patient, that’s
what he truly lives for. It just brings him so much happiness.’
Thinlay explains that after meeting Ruit and witnessing
the compassion the eye doctor showed the destitute, the 3rd
Jamgon Kongtrul quickly wanted to become one of Ruit’s
major patrons, funding the new operating theatre of Tilganga, as well as a succession of remote eye camps such as this one.
Ruit in return regarded him as a source of deep inspiration
and was absolutely devastated by his untimely death in 1992.
The 3rd Jamgon Kongtrul was only 37 years old and had
spent his life dedicated to the welfare of others.
Ruit says, ‘I remember when I first met Rinpoche, at his
monastery in Kathmandu. We were sharing a cup of tea and
talking, and I started getting a very strong personal aura from him. It was very interesting, as if I was being pulled toward him, and everything else in my life sort of faded away and every word he said seemed to be extremely important. He had a simplicity about the way he talked that you could never forget. He would say, “I’m building a monastery here,” and, somehow, it’s hard to explain, but it seemed very important information. Every
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word seemed important. He believed very strongly in social
welfare, that building orphanages and schools and homes
for old people was just as important as a monastery full of a thousand monks saying prayers and meditating.’
Jamgon Kongtrul’s ashes were placed in a stupa or white-
domed shrine at the Pullahari monastery, which he built,
north of Kathmandu. Since his death, his work, through
his foundation, the Jamgon Kongtrul Foundation, remains
one of Ruit’s greatest supporters. ‘I still feel very strongly connected to him,’ Ruit says. ‘We have big photographs of
him in our rooms at the hospital. What I remember the most
was that whenever we talked about me increasing my work,
reaching more patients, I saw a spark of light in his eyes. It was a fantastic spark in his eyes that [meant] it was something I really needed to follow.’
The seemingly miraculous quality of Ruit’s work also
captured the imaginations of Mei and Chiu Chi Wen, who
met the doctor through Gabi Hollows. The couple are
human dynamos, running their charity, Wen Giving, as well
as property development companies in both Kuala Lumpur
and Perth, Australia. As well as funding many of Ruit’s eye
camps, they donated a four- wheel drive to the hospital and
provided more than fourteen ophthalmology scholarships
at Tilganga. Now they’re digging even deeper. They have
joined Ruit in Kalimpong because they have promised to
upgrade the Jamgon Kongtrul Eye Centre. They have also
put $1.5 million on the table to fund Ruit’s first community
eye hospital in Bhutan, which is expected to open in 2018.
Ruit proved to be the perfect conduit for the couple’s desire to help the impoverished country. Mei, a stylish, whip- smart 253
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woman with a wicked sense of humour, says: ‘I used to visit
Kathmandu when it was just a shack at the airport with a
corrugated iron roof. I knew I wanted to do something to
help early on when I watched a girl walking barefoot along
the road. She was such a scrawny, skinny little thing, and
her basket was bigger than her, and I couldn’t stop thinking
about what life was going to be like for her. It just tugged at my heart. As soon as we met Dr Ruit, we knew this was the
way we could help girls like her.
‘We were absolutely amazed by what he was doing. He’s
just consumed by his work restoring sight and he does it again and again. He just doesn’t give up. It’s a unique combination of heart and technical skills. We felt that with our backgrounds, from Malaysia and Singapore, we had an understanding of
the Nepali culture and society he’s come from and could really appreciate what he’s done with his life. He has such a bold
vision and he’s translated that into a reality. It’s not an easy thing to do, so we wanted to help him take more steps forward.’
Chiu Chi says, ‘What’s powerful about Ruit’s work is
the simplicity of purpose. You may not be able to change the
world, but Ruit is showing us that fixing one big problem
really is possible—you can let the blind see. His work has
got that “wow” factor. You can see, hear, taste and smell the effect of his work. It’s immediate gratification; the patients come in blind and when they come out, they can see. Once
we came to the camps and saw what he was doing, it seemed
impossible not
to help. It’s deeply moving.’
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26
A land called
Paradise
One of the rewards of Ruit’s work is the special connection
he has forged with Her Majesty the Queen Grandmother of
Bhutan, Kesang Choden. Visiting her in the exotic Himalayan
kingdom wedged between China and India always restores
and rejuvenates his spirits.
His shoulders slump with relief as his team’s two Toyota
LandCruisers, each marked with a green ‘H’ for hospital,
lumber across the border into the world’s last Shangri- La in 2016. The vehicles and roof racks are crammed with thousands of dollars worth of surgical equipment and, despite
the team having all their visas and papers, the border guards insist on checking everything. Ruit’s team can’t afford to have anything confiscated or rejected. And they certainly don’t
want any delays.
‘It’s always a tense half hour or so, even though we do
everything properly,’ Ruit says, using the break during the
long day’s drive across the mountains of northern India to
phone Nanda in Kathmandu.
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As his travelling surgery passes through the ornate gates
into the Dragon Kingdom, it is as if a curtain of peace descends.
Behind is the dusty mayhem of a typical Indian border town,
the road gridlocked by men pulling rickshaws, gaudily deco-
rated trucks, incessantly beeping buses, stray dogs barking,
policemen wielding truncheons and vendors selling chunks of
watermelon from trays on the back of pushbikes.
Within a few minutes inside the border of Bhutan, the air
is suddenly pure and fresh, and the temperature cools as the
convoy wends its way along the serpentine road toward
the capital of Thimphu. Ahead is a six- hour drive through
dense forests of pines, fir, juniper and spruce trees; more than 60 per cent of the kingdom has been preserved as a national
park, making it the only country in the world which is not
merely carbon neutral, but carbon negative.
At times, the mountain passes are so narrow, and the cliffs
dropping into the valley below so vertiginous, that the Bhutanese official who had alighted at the border is forced to lean out the window to check how close the tyres are to the edge.