Biography of Sanduk Ruit : Everything You Need To Know About Him

Without a need for introduction, Dr. Sanduk Ruit has performed more than 100,000 cataract surgeries. He’s referred to as the “God of Sight.”

Early Life of Sanduk Ruit

On September 4, 1954, he was born in Wolang Chung Gola, Taplejung District, Province No. 1 of Nepal. He had a difficult upbringing along the Tamor River in the Kanchenjunga Himal region.

Sonam Ruit was his father, and Kesaang Ruit was his mother. Nanda Ruit is the spouse of Dr. Sanduk Ruit. He has a son and two daughters. Sonam Wangyal, his father, added the surname Ruit out of nostalgia for his old Tibetan town of Ruthok. The meaning of Sanduk is “The Dragon of the sky” in Tibetan.

When Dr. was a child, he witnessed his sister pass away from a fever and his brother die of dysentery. His sister Yaangla, who also perished from tuberculosis, served as his incentive for wanting to become a doctor.

Sanduk Ruit is fond of reading and music. Ruit views his family as his greatest asset. The Ruit moved to Kathmandu twenty years later and bought a home in the Swayambhu in 2009. Ruit, who conducts free eye camps in the countryside instead of having a private practice, had to incur a large debt in Thaplo in order to buy a home.

Studies of Sanduk Ruit

At the age of seven, he enrolled in Saint Roberts School in Darjeeling, India. He was forced to drop out of school due to the India-China conflict and enrol in Kathmandu’s Siddhartha Banasthali school instead. He went straight from class 7 to class 9. After receiving a First Division in the 1970 SLC test, he enrolled in Trichandra College to study science for his high school diploma. He was given financial aid to attend King George Medical University in Lucknow, India, to pursue an MBBS. In 1984, he completed his MD in ophthalmology at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).

Work Experiences

He spent three years as a general practitioner at Bir Hospital. He spent eight years employed at Nepal Eye Hospital. In 1987, he travelled to Australia to further his education.

Dream of a sophisticated Eye Hospital

Dr. Ruit and his colleagues first made the traditional extra-capsular cataract extraction with lens implantation suitable for the local environment in the late 1980s. Four areas were prioritized:

• Simplifying teamwork, the delivery system, and surgical procedure
• Identifying a highly efficient training system
• Developing reasonably priced medical supplies, such as affordable, high-quality intraocular lenses, and
• Attempting to resolve the complex financial problems.

Dr. Fred Hollows backed him in the establishment of the Tilganga Eye Hospital in June 1994.

The Fred Hollows Foundation, social worker/writer Jagdish Ghimire, actor, comedian, writer, and singer Madan Krishna Shrestha and Hari Bansha Acharya, Rabindra Shrestha, industrialist Devakar Golcha, Everest climber Shambu Tamang, and Dr. Rita Gurung all supported him when he started Tilganga. The Fred Hollows Intra Ocular Lens is made at Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology, formerly known as Tilganga Eye Hospital.

The community’s utilisation of high-quality short incision cataract surgery (SICS) has been updated and made easier by Dr. Sanduk Ruit and his team. During that period, the surgery was not well received in isolated areas of Asia and Africa. As the backlog of cataract cases erupted in Asian and African countries, SICS training gradually spread throughout these regions.

Prior to 1994, the scarcity of donor corneas in Nepal limited the number of corneal transplants performed. The Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology’s establishment of the Nepal Eye Bank transformed the idea of eye donation in that country. Nepal produces all the corneas needed for transplants.

In addition, Dr. Ruit is the director and co-founder of the Himalayan Cataract Project. Drs. Geoff Tabin and Ruit, the co-directors, collaborate closely in numerous regions of the world, including Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, South-east Asia, Thailand, Bhutan, Myanmar, Cambodia, China, and the Pacific Islands.

Honours and Awards

• 2006’s Ramon Magsaysay Award for Peace and Global Understanding
• Thailand’s Prince Mahidol Award for Public Health, 2007
• The Indian government’s 2018 Padma Shri Award
• He received the National Order of Merit Gold in 2015 in recognition of his exceptional efforts to save blindness in Bhutan and restore sight to hundreds of individuals.
• Government of Nepal, Prime Minister’s National Talent Award, 2075
• Renowned Prabal Janasewa Shri (First) Honorary Degree 2076
• Isa Award for Humanitarian Service by the Bahraini Kingdom in 2023

Achievements

• Assistance to the majority of poor nations worldwide.
• The promoter of world-renowned simple and low-cost cataract treatment ‘Ruitectomy’.
• His work in North Korea was the subject of a National Geographic documentary.
• Al Jazeera and Sienna have both documentaries and feature broadcasts about the effort being done to treat cataracts in Nepali villages.
• Ruit altered people’s perspectives.
• An advanced manufacturing facility that produces its own lenses at a lower cost than consulting donors
• The tiniest magical item, or 500,000 lenses, is produced in Nepal each year and exported to 70 other nations.
• Dr. Ruit hopes to produce the lens three times more frequently. Renowned academic Ellen Robin views Ruit as another Steve Jobs—someone who challenges the status quo. Australian ophthalmologist Gary Bryan believes that Ruit’s method of restoring vision through cataract surgery and intraocular lens implantation is comparable to how Henry Ford created the automobile in the United States.