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IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation performed cataract surgeries on 14.055 people last year in different countries as part of the “Cataract Surgery Project” carried with the slogan “An Eye Sees the World.”

The cataract disease that mainly appears in elderly people in Turkey and causes blindness when untreated - generally happens due to reasons including age, malnutrition, long period of intense light exposure and eye traumas. Millions of people lose their sight and live dependent on others because they are unable to receive surgery due to the lack of financial and technical means.

In 2017, the number of cataract surgery launched by IHH in Africa in 2007 with the slogan "If you can see, they should too", reached its 100.000 goal. As part of this project, 100.000 cataract surgeries have been performed in 10 years with the support of donors enabling thousands of people to regain their sight. The project was implemented in 14 countries including Sudan, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Mali, Chad, Uganda, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, Niger, Ethiopia, Mozambique and Somalia.

The project is expanding

In 2020, IHH performed a total of 14.055 cataract surgeries in various countries. These surgeries were performed in Mali, Uganda, South Africa, Chad, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. With these cataract surgeries, thousands of people regained their sight. This cataract project also served as a training program for doctors and healthcare workers of these regions. These surgeries were performed for a small fee of around 500 TL. Together with the surgeries carried out in 2020, the total number of surgeries performed by IHH since 2007 in 19 countries has reached 141.780, while eye examinations carried out reached a total of 763.342.

2021 goal of cataract surgeries

In 2021, IHH aims to perform 20.000 cataract surgeries depending on donations.