Written by: Eshanee Manandhar - 28004, Grade VIII
Posted on: 06 November, 2023
Sanduk Ruit is a Nepali ophthalmologist who is known for curing people’s eyes who is famously known as “God of Sight” as he has been curing people’s eyes from Asian countries to African countries. Sanduk Ruit has been known for ages due to his work and he is also considered as one of the national figures of our country today and international figures in other countries.
Sanduk Ruit was born on September 4, 1954 in a rural area of Olangchung Gola. His parents lived in a village in Taplejung district who were Sonam Ruit, father and Kesar Ruit, mother. Among his 6 siblings, he was the second oldest. However as time passed 3 of his siblings passed due to getting affected by several diseases like diarrhoea and tuberculosis which they could not cure since they could not afford the treatment, surgery or the medicines. However, the death of his younger sister Yangle made him depressed and uneasy for a while as Sanduk and Yangla were really close to each other and they shared a special bond. The death of his siblings brought up his dream of being a doctor working for the poor and saving everyone’s lives. During his childhood, he went to a school in darjeeling. Despite his family being financially unstable, they still helped their son achieve his dreams and goals. He then went to India and studied Bachelor of medicine and Bachelor of surgery. When he came back to Nepal, he started working at Bir Hospital. Since he had a major interest in eye surgeries, he went to a university through scholarship and successfully got a master’s degree which he further used on to work in an eye hospital. During that time, Fred Hollows, who was an ophthalmologist, was in Nepal. Noticing the eagerness to study, he offered Sanduk Ruit to study cataract surgery in Australia. He took the offer and he was also able to study in The United States Of America and in the Netherlands as well.
While working in Australia, he was offered to stay there and work there. However, he declined that offer and went back to Nepal. In Nepal, he stayed there by working in an eye hospital, Tripureshwor eye hospital. While working in Nepal, he met Nanda Shrestha who had the same interest in ophthalmology. Nanda Shrestha was an ophthalmic nurse whom Sanduk Ruit met later. After meeting and getting to know each other for a while, they both decided to marry. After some years of their marriage, they had given birth to 2 daughters and a son.
Fred Hollows and Sanduk Ruit started working together. They had made a goal of creating an inexpensive intraocular lens. However, the materials were quite too expensive. However, with patience and hardwork, Sanduk Ruit was able to create an intraocular lense which was inexpensive and also could be used during the cataract surgery. During this time, he also founded Tilganga institute of ophthalmology. In the institute, the people who have eye-sight problems and eye problems often visit. Sanduk Ruit and his staff cures their eye diseases through the cataract surgery with affordable prices so that even the ones who are poor or financially unstable could cure the eye problems and eye diseases. There were several people outside Kathmandu who could not go to the institute because of their eye-problems. Knowing about this, Sanduk Ruit decided to form teams who went to those places where the people who have eye-problems stayed in and cured their eyes. By that time, he cured more than 10,000 people’s eyes and was named as god of sight since he made people see the world. He also helped our country by maintaining friendship with North Korea as he cured more than 1000 north korean people’s eye problems and gave them the proper treatment. He went to the rural areas of Nepal and also helped those people by curing their eye sights and eye problems.
Due to the work he did, he had accomplished and was given several awards throughout his life. Some of them were : Ramon Magsaysay Award, Asian of the year award, Prince Mahidol award in Thailand, the Padma Shri Award, ISA award awarded by the government of India, The highest civilian award in Bahrain which was awarded by the king of Bahrain to him. He was also appointed as the Honorary officer in Australia ‘for service to humanity by establishing eye care services in Nepal and surrounding countries, and for his work in teaching and training surgeons, and technical innovation’. While receiving those awards, he maintained relationships with several countries as he helped cure the eye problems of the citizens of several countries. While curing their eye problems, he also helped train other people to become a surgeon and this has motivated several people.
Sanduk Ruit is an important person throughout the world. He has cured the eye-sight problems, eye infections and the eye issues of several people not only in Nepal but also in other countries like Bahrain, India, North Korea etc. We all should be working like Dr Sanduk Ruit, always working for the good and ignoring the bad. We must take motivation and become inspired by the work of Sanduk Ruit. Taking inspiration from Dr Sanduk’s Ruit does not mean that we must all become an eye surgeon or an ophthalmologist or build our own institute. We just need to work for the positive side and we need to work in a way that will help all the types of people like: rich, financially unstable etc. We need to have a dream of saving the world but while trying to save the world, we must be aware to never destroy the world. We must see the world’s future in a positive way and make that vision of ours come true. We must develop our own country and then later help the whole world. Sanduk Ruit is a great example of a good person and we must also be like him.
