An Update On The Children David Met With Sighsavers In Uganda

We're sure you will all remember the emotional journey to Uganda that David Tennant made with Comic Relief last year to visit the work that Sightsavers are carrying out there.
At the time David wrote a diary that was published in the Radio Times, the following is an extract from that diary:
“I'd never been to Africa before and I wasn't without reservations about my suitability for the task in hand. But when Comic Relief tell you your services are required, you take your malaria pills and get on with it. I met some extraordinary people and I saw some things I will never forget.
I travelled to an eye hospital in Kamuli with Doreen, her little sister and her mum Ruth. (You can see us pictured above.) Doreen has cataracts.
I've always thought of myself as rather squeamish, so the prospect of watching a surgical procedure up close didn't thrill me. Especially as it was poking around in someone's eyeballs. In the end I found it utterly fascinating. The skill of the surgeons working in such detail and with such concentration is compelling.
Children born with cataracts have to be found and treated while they are still young or their brains will never learn to see. By the time a child is seven it is already too late, the optic nerve will never function like it should.
When Doreen has her bandages removed she is examined by the surgeon. She grizzles and wriggles and has clearly had enough with people poking her around and shining lights in her face, but when the bandage comes off she can clearly follow the surgeon's torch and the signs are good. She can go home that day with a tube of antibiotic eye drops and a very happy mother. It has been less than 24 hours since she arrived at the hospital but her life is changed forever.”

Now the Sightsavers website have published an update on how the children he met are doing, a year on from his trip.
Please click here to visit their site to read the update and find out more about the work they do.

You can watch David's videos from his visit below:

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