Singarum Balbalda and his wife Mogi have travelled by boat from a remote area of Papua New Guinea to the Madang eye clinic.
They’ve been waiting in the township for two months so Singarum, who is blind in both eyes, can get cataract surgery.
"In our culture, the men take care of their families, and because I can’t do that now, I find it difficult to live with myself,” he tells 1News.
As subsistence farmers rely on the land they work, Singarum’s blindness has had a devastating impact.
“For three years, I have been carrying things for him – it’s a lot of hard work with no one to help me in the garden for our food,” Mogi said.
Papua New Guinea has the highest rate of blindness in the Pacific – around 5.6% of all people over the age of 50 are blind.
It's why New Zealand charity the Fred Hollows Foundation, which has helped restore the eyesight of tens of thousands of people around the Pacific, is intensifying its efforts there.
As well as helping with funding, equipment and technical support, it's heavily involved in increasing the local workforce.
Fred Hollows Foundation chair Audrey Aumua says training is crucial because PNG is such- a large and complex country to work in, and the greatest need is in areas that are remote and hard to access.
Aumua says a recent study has shown that with an estimated population of 11-12 million people, the country needs 90 eye doctors to meet the need – but it only has 14.
“When you train a Papua New Guinean doctor when you train a Papua New Guinean nurse, you know that stay, they stay..they belong to a community, and they will always serve that community, so it's been a very important modelling intervention because they are invested,” she says.
In Medang, 110 eye nurses have been trained, and in the capital, Port Moresby, doctors can train to be ophthalmologists –the Fred Hollows Foundation works with local partners like the provincial health authorities and the Divine Word University to support that training.
Dr David Pahau is based in Madang, and up to 8,000 patients a year come through here.
He says restoring the eyesight to so many people makes him happy.
“It’s really instant with eye surgery. You can have the patient see the next day,” he says.
Like Singarum Balbalda. Just 24 hours after surgery, when the eye patch comes off, he yells with joy and surprise – as he sees his nurse has light-coloured hair.
With a smile that overwhelms his face, he tells his wife she looks as young as the day he first met her.
Pacific Correspondent Barbara Dreaver travelled to PNG with The Fred Hollow’s Foundation, which celebrates its 30th birthday this year.
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