Anhui eye doctor helps preserve Nepalese boy’s sight

When 12-year-old Roj Pariyar was brought out of the operating room of a hospital in Hefei, Anhui province, his two sisters burst into tears.

Born in 2006 in Pokhara city in Nepal, Pariyar has been suffering from a degenerative condition affecting both his eyes since birth. But he had not received any treatment until he underwent surgery in Hefei on Tuesday, according to the boy’s sister Sushma Pariyar.

“The boy’s eyesight had been worsening dramatically since he was four,” she said.

“His left eye has a limited perception of light, which has been lost in the right one,” said Fu Linlin, the doctor at the Hefei Brighteye Hospital who performed the operation.

The surgery will stop the boy’s illness from worsening and protect his left eye’s perception of light, the doctor said.

“Without the surgery, the boy would soon lose his sight completely,” Fu said.

The hospital not only treated the boy for free, but also raised nearly 10,000 yuan ($1,530) in donations from its employees to pay for the Pariyars’ travel between Pokhara and Hefei.

The boy’s plight was made known to the hospital by Zhang Youyi, a Chinese volunteer who has been doing philanthropic work in Nepal since June 2017.

“One day in October I saw the boy stumbling in the village. Later, I met five members of his family who lived in a house of only about 15 square meters,” said Zhang, who learned the Pariyars had an annual income of about $90.

Zhang helped the boy and his two adult sisters get passports two days after he met them. With help from the Chinese embassy in Nepal, they got visas and arrived in Hefei last week.