When the "call" came, it took Donovan Thorrold three days to decide to drop a profitable multi-million-rand optometrist business in swank Cape Town for the Eastern Cape backwaters. An initial sense of the idea on a Thursday, followed by a chat with his wife on Friday was cemented by Saturday when he met his old friend John Rae, the Chief Executive Officer of Grace Vision, who happened to be at Canal Walk that weekend.
And thus began a partnership that, for no charge, has eye screened more than 100,000 people, performed 1,800 cataract operations and dished out over 18,000 pairs of glasses in the Zithulele area, southeast Eastern Cape in the past seven years, more than 60,000 of them children under 13 years.
"It felt like a calling for my wife and I," Thorrold said as he took a break from screening villagers who had come to Zithulele Clinic. ``We felt like we should go and when John happened to be in Canal Walk that day and we had the discussion, we decided we should take it.
“I feel like what we do makes a difference among people who have very little access to good quality healthcare.”
And that’s Grace Vision. Established in 2008 and known then as Mercy Ships, the non-profit organisation seeks to provide high quality primary eye care in what Rae describes as ``deep rural’’ South Africa amongst the poorest people who would otherwise never have afforded it. It estimates about 400,000 South Africans are already blind, with an estimated 240,000 blind from cataracts.
Zenzele Itereleng funded the Zithulele programme covering a catchment area of more 130,000 people. The area has a high elderly population with Rae estimating almost every adult will need reading glasses for chores like herding cattle, cooking, washing and reading. When Rae and his team arrived in 2012, the area had a surgery backlog of four and half years. Today, that backlog has been wiped off and anyone who presents themselves at their clinic and lives around the area is able to get cataract surgery.
"We believe this is the only rural place in the country that can boast such an achievement,"" Rae says. In neighbouring Kwazulu-Natal, more than 8,000 people are waiting for cataract surgery at state hospitals largely due to antiquated equipment. The achievement is in no small part due to Grace Vision’s supporters, chief among them Zenzele Itereleng which has donated about R5 million since the work began. That money was used to buy two trucks equipped with eye medical equipment, four mobile eye units and two screening units and a third truck which operates as a fully equipped mobile kitchen.
Other funds have been used to build staff accommodation and employ the NGO’s staff, all of whom are locals. "It’s a big deal," Rae speaks with passion when he talks of the NGO’s work and the difference that it has made in the community. He says anecdotal evidence shows that children, particularly girls, are forced to drop out of school to look after adults who become unnecessarily blind due to cataracts.
Rae shares the story of one young man who as he describes it, "couldn’t see an inch from his face". At 17, he was a recluse and couldn’t read or write. After being screened, he was given glasses, went back to school and now he is in Grade 7. "It broke our hearts to see him."" We met grandma Mopasile Ncothovu, 81, at Zithulele clinic when she came in for her review
"When I went blind, I couldn’t cook, I couldn’t even bath and wash my things and my husband and grandchildren had to help. Now I can cook for myself and my grandchildren. I can look after myself.’’ Rae wants the programme to grow beyond the Eastern Cape rural areas to other provinces in the country. "Our objective is to restore sight to everyone who comes to us. We want to see the eradication of avoidable blindness in communities that we serve, and that’s deep rural."
For Donovan and his wife, it’s an opportunity to serve. "We are very happy and settled here. It’s not about money."
