‘Many patients are dying blind’: South Africa’s struggle to save eyesight

Katrina Makatees, 82, was able to have her sight restored with cataract surgery. But more than three thousand people remain on the waiting list in the provincial capital, Kimberley. Photograph: Barry Christianson/The Guardian

It took just 15 minutes for the surgeon to restore Katrina Makatees’s quality of life. “I almost fell asleep in there!” the 82-year-old jokes, while the surgeon who has just removed her cataract turns to the next patient at a public hospital in Upington in South Africa’s Northern Cape province.

Medical charities have organised an “eye clinic week” in the town and patients fill every seat along the corridors. For some here, this might be a chance to regain their sight. For others it might mean at least a diagnosis even if they cannot be cured.