Steve Collins began his career as a pastor in Newfoundland, Canada. As one of the few educated individuals, town’s people began bringing all their sick to him for treatment advice. So off he went to medical school. In 1991, about the time I myself moved to Angola, Dr Collins was also drawn to that nation’s abhorrent health crisis. Trained ophthalmology, he set out providing eye care to the eastern half of the country – the most remote and impoverished.
Cataracts are extremely common in Angola – blinding thousands of people each year in this nation where most survive on just pennies a day. After 20 years of ophthalmic work in Angola, Dr. Collins just marked his 20,000th cataract removal, many performed at Lubango Evangelical Medical Center – an INMED Training Site. Contributing to this amazing feat is that Dr. Collins is 75 years of age and has performed all these surgeries by hand under a microscope. Such manual techniques are seldom used anymore in wealthier nations, but are essential in Angola’s low-resource context. And for how many people has Collins witnessed sight restored? 19,999. Truly his is a life very well lived!
But what about that person whose sight was NOT restored? View this Three Minute Video of Dr. Collins in Action – and be inspired.