Cuban ophthalmologists have performed 900 cataract and pterygium surgeries in less than 15 work days in Nicaragua, where the physicians from the Caribbean Island have won the people's love and affection.

It is a blessing, says 52-year-old Gerardo Padilla, as he waits to be operated on at the Sandino ophthalmological Clinic, a hospital donated by Cuba and located 10 miles northeast of Managua.

Padilla resides in the capital, but the Cuban physicians are his only choice to recover his sight, because he cannot afford to pay 2,000 dollars to have both eyes operated on.

People from different regions of the country have come to the Sandino clinic to undergo free eye surgery since its inauguration on May 1.

Some patients have come from Chontales (a department that is more than 80 miles from Managua), Clinic Director Reina Martinez told Prensa Latina.

According to Dr. Martinez, more than 200 patients have been classified and will undergo surgery over the next few days.

Each of the three Cuban surgeons working at the clinic performs up to 30 surgeries a day, working from 8 am to 12 am sometimes, depending on how many cases they have.

The Cuban staff, made up of 27 experts, is the vanguard, because two other eye clinics will be inaugurated in July in Puerto Cabezas and Bluefields, the capitals of the Autonomous Regions of North and South Atlantic, respectively.

Cuba's collaboration in Nicaragua is part of the so-called Operation Miracle, a humanitarian project boosted by the Cuban and Venezuelan governments, as a result of which more than 600,000 poor people in Latin America have recovered their sight in two years.

Source: CubaSi