BHUTAN
The Kingdom of Bhutan is a small, landlocked country located in the Himalayan Mountains between India and China. With a population of approximately 777,500 people, the majority of individuals reside within the central highlands.
Bhutan is renowned for its commitment to Gross National Happiness (GNH), a contemporary philosophy of governance that views population well-being as important as economic production.
Values such as environmental conservation, cultural preservation, and fair development supersede economic growth drivers like tourism. Thus, the tourism industry in Bhutan is regulated, and tourists are required to pay $250 per day to visit.
BLINDNESS IN BHUTAN
- 7.45% (580,000) people have moderate to severe visual impairments
- There are only 8.4 ophthalmologists per 1 million people
- In 2015, the country had a cataract surgical rate of 1,553 per million of the population
THE TEJ KOHLI & RUIT FOUNDATION IN BHUTAN
In 2022, we partnered with the Bhutanese Ministry of Health to set out to cure a combined total of 10,000 cases of cataract blindness by 2026.
Our foundation has pledged to complete 1,000 surgeries a year for the next five years, and the Ministry of Health has vowed to do the same.
Our goal is to cure the entire backlog of cataract blindness in Bhutan and lift hundreds of thousands of people of poverty.
PATIENT STORIES
WHERE WE HAVE BEEN
Wangdue Phodrang
143 Cured Of Blindness
1047 Screened
