Sanduk Ruit

Meet Sanduk Ruit.

He grew up a tiny village in one of the remotest regions of Nepal with no electricity, no school, no health facility, or any modern means of communication. His family were subsistence farmers, but managed to save enough to send him to school in India, where he trained to become an eye surgeon. His mission, he decided, would be to help restore eyesight to the poor.

In the 1990s, while training in Australia, he learned about a cataract micro-surgery technique using implanted intraocular lenses. He improved it, developing a new, simpler technique and reducing the cost of the lenses from $300 to $3. He then headed into the field, setting up makeshift operating rooms in tents, classrooms, and even animal stables, and sometimes walking up to seven days to reach patients in Nepal’s most remote villages.

Over the past 25 years, he's restored the sight of over 130,000 people across Asia and Africa. His nonprofit organisation, the Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology, has trained over 650 doctors to conduct small-incision cataract surgery, and the technique is now used in over 60 countries and taught in US medical schools.

"My patients are my life and soul. Life is so short and there are so many more things to achieve."