After years of being begged to have the cataracts removed from her eyes, 94-year-old gogo Nomangile Nondende from Ndakana village outside Stutterheim has finally braved her biggest fear – having a needle in her eye.
Once she learnt that wasn’t the case, she underwent cataract surgery at Life St James hospital in East London on Wednesday morning.
The surgical procedure restores full vision.
Nondende said when her eyesight began to deteriorate in 2015 she just accepted that she was going blind.
A family doctor referred her to an eye specialist in 2016, but she hid the referral letter from her family because she did not want any “scary operations”.
“ I’m a very healthy person, as you can see.
“I’m also still very young so I did not see any need for this surgery.
“I was afraid of the procedure because some people told me scary stories.
“I did not understand how needles could be poked into your eyes and you still survived that.”
A chance encounter at her doctor’s office last week led her to eye specialist Dr Ahmed Asholi’s offices on Tuesday – and to the hospital for a free cataract removal.
Life Healthcare hospitals in the Eastern Cape region plan to sponsor 33 cataract removal procedures during October, which is eyecare awareness month.
Nondende said she was pleasantly surprised that the surgery was nothing like what she’d imagined.
When her right eye is healed she will be back for the other eye. “Next time I will come back without being begged. I will tell my family that it’s time to go back to East London for the next procedure,” she said.
Life Healthcare’s regional manager, Bruce Janssens, said: “In this instance, we were able to offer sight to someone who has been living with partial blindness. This is our chance to give back to our communities and really touch the heart of the communities we serve.”..