SIGHT SAVING PROGRAM

Pioneered by Dr. Apollo Baluyot, it started operating on indigent recipients from the Home for Abandoned Elderly at the ZAEC Community Hospital where Tzu Chi was given charity rates. After a few months, it also partnered with the Zamboanga City Medical Center (ZCMC) Department of Ophthalmology under its chairman Dra. Ann Cases. That partnership matured with Tzu Chi and ZCMC extending help to neighboring provinces in Mindanao. Aside from providing indigents recipients with FREE pre and post operative medications and cataract kits; Tzu Chi Zamboanga also loaned ZCMC a state of the art Autorefractometer and an ophthalmic operating microscope for use at the hospital. Today, FREE CATARACT SURGERIES for indigents are performed almost daily at ZCMC under the sponsorship of Tzu Chi Zamboanga, Cataract Foundation of the Philippines and Zamboanga City Medical Center. Aside from FREE CATARACT OPERATIONS, Tzu Chi also does Pterydium scrapping, Visual Screening in impoverished communities to include distribution of free prescription and reading glasses and administering of Vitamin A drops to children and adults.

Tzu Chi Zamboanga is very thankful for the all out support of Cataract Foundation of the Philippines based in Bacolod City, Philippines for helping us sustain and broaden the reach of our sight saving program.