Mercy

Mercy was two years old when her poverty-stricken parents noticed whitening in her right eye. Fearing the worst, they travelled 300 kilometres by bus and on foot to reach the Rift Valley Provincial General Hospital in Nakuru, Kenya.

It was lucky that Mercy's parents had acted promptly. To their horror, they found that Mercy didn't have the cataract that they had been told she had. Instead they discovered she had retinoblastoma, a cancer of the eye. 

Fortunately, the cancer had not spread and surgeons at the hospital's eye unit were able to remove the eye. If it had been left unattended much longer, the cancer would have spread and there would have been no chance that it could have been treated.

The Fred Hollows Foundation's Eastern Africa Medical Adviser, Dr Wanjiku Mathenge, was able to operate quickly on Mercy, even though her parents had so little money.

This was able to happen because of a special initiative, funded by the Silver Lining Project through The Fred Hollows Foundation which is called the Nakuru Children's Surgery Project.

The project was initiated by two women who initially donated AUD$2,600 to The Fred Hollows Foundation, to fund eye surgery for children whose parents could not afford to pay.

Hundreds of children have since had surgery, including Mercy, without which she would have had to wait until her parents could raise enough money to pay for her operation. Time was something Mercy didn't have.

The Nakuru Children's Surgery Project is one part of the many activities being supported by The Foundation at the eye unit.