She sits alone on a waiting room chair clinging to a stuffed tiger and the slim hope that the doctor, Kim Hakin, will examine her. If he doesn't, she will be sent home and eventually go blind.

Hakin is a plastic surgeon from Britain and his expertise with eyes has landed him a role with ORBIS, a non-profit organisation devoted to curing blindness in the developing world. He and a team of medicos from across the globe visit impoverished nations such as Laos and Burma to train local eye doctors, nurses and medical engineers. And I'm here to see how their style of voluntourism works.

In the sparse examination room, I find Hakin cursing quietly at the tiled floor, his head in his hands, jetlag and food poisoning having robbed him of his patience and his ordinarily dry wit.

Of the thousand hopefuls such as Hatsaline, only a dozen are chosen as sample patients on screening day. "We call it screaming day," confides Hakin, explaining that in some countries the chaos borders on a riot. Laos has been especially calm. Guided by loved ones, each patient sheds their shoes on the steps of the local eye hospital, leaving a brown carpet of worn footwear reminiscent of fallen magnolia leaves.

The patients, many with eyes the colour of poached eggs, diligently shuffle from one waiting area to the next, waiting to be identified, waiting to be examined, waiting to be told yes or no. A monk, resplendent in orange robes, collects his sandals and shuffles slowly back into the beating sun. He will not be operated on. The crowd parts for a wheelchair-bound man swaddled in dirty sportswear. He was struck by lightning, leaving him paralysed, burned and without eyelids. His condition seems tailor-made for a remarkable transformation. Hakin shakes his head regretfully. With only a few operations in which to demonstrate techniques, Hakin and the other ORBIS doctors must choose common conditions the local doctors can learn from rather than unusual, more challenging cases.

It is ordinary conditions such as glaucoma and cataracts that afflict 45 million people worldwide (90 per cent of whom live in the developing world and 80 per cent of whose cases can be cured or prevented).

Fortunately, Hatsaline's case is common enough: she was born with no tendon to hold open her right eyelid, causing it to droop uncontrollably. In time her brain will ignore the signal from her eye and she will lose her vision. Hakin adds her to his roster. Her operation will take place in two days at the airport in the ORBIS Flying Eye Hospital.

Before joining Hakin and his team for dinner, I take a sunset stroll through Vientiane's dusty streets and along the Mekong River. Makeshift restaurants fashioned from a bird's nest of split bamboo line the banks, their stalls filled with enticements such as freshly skinned frogs and live catfish. At dinner, the spirited conversation is made livelier by a trio of murderous cats fighting at our bare ankles. I take a seat next to Shoba Katulama, a cataract specialist from India who I learn can perform up to 90 procedures in a day.

Across the table, glaucoma specialist Jonathan Myers is talking shop. "Glaucoma takes your sight quietly," he says. "By the time you notice you can't see, it's already gone. You can't get it back. You can only stop it getting worse." The sun is down but the heat is still stifling. The program director, Hunter Cherwek, passes me water, an antidote to the chillies I just mistook for green beans. While I'm dousing my tongue he tells me there is more to curing blindness than teaching local doctors how to wield a scalpel.

"In Cambodia we were putting glasses on a child and his grandmother started crying. The Khmer Rouge killed anyone who wore glasses because they were seen as intellectual."

The following morning, at the airport, we pass beneath a sign reading "Show all weapons" and on to the tarmac.

Nothing quite prepares me for the ORBIS Flying Eye Hospital. First class has been replaced by a lecture theatre; business class is an examination room and economy has become an operating theatre and recovery room. The operating room is linked to the lecture theatre by way of a studio full of cameras and microphones, enabling Hakin to talk through every step of the operation.

Not only does the plane generate the clean air and reliable power necessary for sensitive medical equipment, it produces hospital grade H2O from ditch water in five minutes flat. The plane is so laden with gear it can't cross the Pacific Ocean, instead having to chart an overland course across Russia.

The patients seem equally impressed. They huddle in the examination room, trying to take in their new surroundings with whatever vision they have. Through a Red Cross interpreter, I ask a particularly bewildered looking farmer, Toum, how much her cataract operation would cost in Laos. "Six pigs," she replies brightly. It would be her family's entire life savings.

I am distracted by a hubbub at one of the examination stations. A patient is desperately trying to explain something to Myers.

Finally the interpreter giggles and tells him, "He thinks you look like Keanu Reeves." In another corner two nurses are attempting to soothe Kamla, an inconsolable woman who, if it were not for early detection, would be completely blind from glaucoma within a year. She points at a small mark on her cornea she thinks unsightly and it becomes clear she knows nothing of how close she came to permanent blindness.

Like all the patients, Hatsaline wears her best clothes to the operation: a Barbie outfit with matching patent leather shoes. She slips into her hospital gown, leaving her shoes to shine brightly in the oval of sunshine spilling in from the window. Propped in a chair alongside is Hakin, his eyes closed.

"This is no zen preparation technique," he says, stretching into action. "I'm just shagged."

In the operating room he deftly cuts three holes in Hatsaline's delicate brow and threads an artificial tendon to join the muscle to the lid. The procedure is quick, 15 minutes at most. In first class, a roomful of ophthalmologists nods appreciatively and takes notes.

When I see Hatsaline the next day, her eye is already fully open. She clasps her hands together and bows in thank you and, for the first time, she smiles. As my eyes fill with tears, my vision grows blurry.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/travel/an-everyday-miracle-in-laos/story-fn44w9hc-1225826658476?from=public_rss