I enjoy highlighting the inspiring service of Steve Collins. Born in Angola in 1938, Dr. Collins returned twenty years ago, bringing along with him special training in ophthalmology. But even more than this, Dr. Collins carried with him a compelling desire to alleviate the needless blindness that afflicts a mass of humanity in this nation.
Simple, age-related cataracts are frequent in Angola. These are not the slight-visual-loss kind of frequent in North America, where they are repaired in timely fashion. Rather, Angolan cataracts are usually advanced, dense, dark, and render hundreds of thousands of persons totally disabled. Another particular characteristic of Angolan vision loss is that these blind individuals often reside in rule villages, without means of transport to any level of medical care.
Collins, who just celebrated his 80th birthday, has over the last 30 years performed some 22,000 cataract repairs – in addition to treating a myriad of other diseases. This eye service is not only confined to CEML Hospital, but thanks to hefty support from donors and Christian Blind Mission, he carries it into the most remote reaches of this nation. Inspiring, indeed!