“Helping children to see has become my passion”

“At the moment in Malawi there are only eight surgeons [for a population of more than 14 million people]. Another issue is that in a poorly resourced country, people don’t seek help. They are stuck somewhere and the doctor is somewhere else, until you link the two: that is when you start to make an impact.

“Most patients in Malawi don’t go looking for help, so somebody has to look for them in their own villages. Once you find them you can’t ship them all to one centre, as it would be impossible. It’s easiest to move the team as close as possible to where they are. So you find the patient and move them to their local hospital. Then you find the medical team and move them to the same local hospital – not just the team, but all the [medical] necessities, which is a huge logistical problem.

“All of these logistical movements are funded by Sightsavers, including finding most of the essential medical equipment.”

“There are no tarmacked roads in the region: if you need to visit a patient, they are mostly off the road. This is easier in the dry season: in the rainy season, even in a 4×4 you can get stuck. Once my team crossed the river, then while they were working it started raining, the river filled up and they got stuck. The locals had to pull them out. It’s not the everyday fancy commute to work.

“I don’t live in a fool’s paradise. I know the limit of what a single individual can achieve, and in the last chapter of my life my attention is turning to motivating as many doctors as possible. I’m trying to work with like-minded friends to come up with ways of making them stick around once they specialise. Once that is achieved, my chapter is closed.”