RESTORING HOPE
Following his father’s lead, as a medical student,
Haider made several trips to dangerous and
impoverished countries for a week here or there
to perform surgery in less than ideal conditions.
He’d work around the clock, performing dozens
of surgeries, but would return home frustrated.
“I did not want to do mission trips all the time,”
he said. “It’s heartbreaking to work for a week,
and then what? There’s no follow up. I saw the
degree of suffering. You don’t expect to go blind
from cataracts in the United States, it’s a normal
part of getting older. But, in the rest of the world,
especially Third World countries where there is
lack of care, people go blind from something as
simple as cataracts or even simple cancers like skin
cancer that isn’t taken care of and then spreads
and turns terrible.”
He realized the solution was not the mission
trips, but a foundation with a mission. “It was
empty to some degree for me: ‘Oh, look, I did
a mission trip.’ It’s not about me; it’s about the
patients. If you want to have a true impact, you
need the continuum of care.”
Haider reached out to friends, contacts and
even patients for ideas and guidance. One patient,
Graham Cooke, seized the idea. A lawyer and
owner/operator of Louisville’s treasured Hawley-
Cooke Booksellers, Cooke was nearing retirement
and looking for a new outlet for his energy.
“We started talking about what we wanted to
do in the future,” Cooke said. “Dr. Haider has a
has a huge heart and it shows. For a very small
amount of money, we could deliver sight. That
is true impact.”
Soon, Louisville stockbroker and Morgan
Stanley money manager Dick Wilson was on
board as well. Together, the trio reached out to
several local investors and business leaders, and
with their help – and the assistance of Lions Club
International – World Sight was formed.
Haider realized the key was setting up active
clinics in an area, training a surgeon on site, and
then supporting that clinic with supplies and
guidance. World Sight clinics currently operate
in Ghana, Iraq and Tanzania. A fourth clinic
also operated in Madagascar but is temporarily
closed due to lack of funding. These are clinics
in dangerous, poor, underdeveloped or war-torn
countries. Haider should know. He was briefly
kidnapped once in Iraq. He’s suffered from malaria
three times.
“In the beginning, I took a bag and went there
32 EXTOL : DECEMBER 2018/JANUARY 2019
on my own to work,” said Haider. “But, now, we
contract with a full-time surgeon there who is
our local point man. He does his own work; I give
guidance, training, and supplies. He can then
follow up with all the patients. In some cases,
we’ve had surgeons from Africa come here and
do fellowships with me.
“THIS IS AN
INEXPENSIVE
PROCEDURE OF
ABOUT $25 AN
EYE THAT CAN GIVE
SIGHT AND IS NOT
AVAILABLE TO
MOST INDIVIDUALS
IN AFRICA, SOUTH
AMERICA, ASIA
AND OTHER
PLACES. THAT’S
WHY I DO THIS.”
–DR. ALI HAIDER OF WORLD SIGHT
“Cataract surgery takes me about seven minutes,
and – boom! – you can go from blindness to
seeing,” Haider added. “This is an inexpensive
procedure of about $25 an eye that can give sight
and is not available to most individuals in Africa,
South America, Asia and other places. That’s why
I do this.”
And he does it with extreme efficiency.
“Here’s the challenge,” explained Dick Wilson.
“World Sight is one of the most efficient charities
because we have no overhead. We have no office,
no staff, anything we do is through the internet
and Dr. Haider.”
Donors generated by Wilson, Cooke and
Haider’s networking raise funds for supplies
and kits needed for the surgeons on site to do
their job. “If you could work on the efficiencies
of a position on site versus sending a team from
the USA and the cost of that for a short trip, it’s
so much more efficient to support the local
ophthalmologists,” said Wilson.
Haider travels to each site through the year.
He recently returned from Iraq in late October.
“In Iraq, we work with a hospital where their
entire ophthalmology department is World Sight
physicians. It’s difficult to manage this in a place
like Iraq. There was the issue with ISIS and that
stops all business. We have trouble importing
medicine and equipment because everything
shuts down. Many of these countries are corrupt.
We sent a cataract machine to Iraq, and it sat in
the port for three months until the person there
was taken care of. Of course, that frustrates me,
but that’s part of the ‘game’ there,” Haider said.
There are other frustrations, too.
Haider’s work in Third World countries has
created an internal struggle. “It humbles you,”
he said. “Initially, it was extremely shocking and
disturbing, things go through your head that you
don’t understand. For example, why is there such
an abundance of food in one part of the world,
where we toss uneaten hamburgers because
someone put ketchup on it? Somewhere, kids are
starving to death because their bodies are eating
their own muscles. It makes no sense. We are
wasting so much food when there is starvation.
People get all googly-eyed about their animals.
If they saw what happens to children over there,
these people would be crying their eyes out.”
Many patients in the clinics are blind in both
eyes, said Haider. “I must make that decision: Do
I have enough equipment for both eyes, or do I
only operate on one eye on this person and save
the cornea for the next person? Giving sight in
one eye makes a person non-blind. I can make
two people non-blind. It’s shocking to my mind
to not be able to give full sight to one person, but
I have limited resources.”
To continue its mission and grow, World Sight
needs funding, new supporters, and literally, new