GX Foundation's interns Jessie Yeung and Vicky Lee practice eyes screening to cataract patients with a slit-lamp under the guidance of a doctor. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

Channeling their empathy, big hearts, and professional know-how into the GX Foundation’s Cataract Blindness Elimination Projects, Hong Kong medical students gain self-worth and self-accomplishment in return, with their labors of love shining through in the Belt and Road countries.

From 2023 to 2027, GX will be providing free cataract surgeries to restore vision for 37,500 patients in Laos, Cambodia, Djibouti, Senegal and Mauritania, according to the memorandums of understanding signed with the five countries

The project was initiated by foundation Chairman Leung Chun-ying, who is also a vice-chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and a former Hong Kong chief executive.

A Chinese nonprofit organization established in Hong Kong in 2018, GX Foundation has been dedicated to providing medical and public health humanitarian assistance to countries along the Belt and Road, an embodiment of the “people-to-people bonds”. The gesture of unconditional kindness delivered by volunteers from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has helped foster people-to-people connections between China and Southeast Asia as well as Africa.

Two GX interns — Jessie Yeung, a fourth-year medical student at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Vicky Lee, a fourth-year medical student at the University of Hong Kong — visited Laos and Cambodia from early March to mid-May to join GX’s Cataract Blindness Elimination Projects, assisting in the preparation work to kick-start surgery, performing patient triage and pre-operative examinations, while collaborating with a medical team from the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.

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Both students say they relish the rare experience and valuable opportunity, where they can get the hang of practicing their medical and nonmedical knowledge in the field.

Passionate about humanitarian work since childhood, Yeung once volunteered in an orphanage in Cambodia as a secondary school student. After entering medical school at CUHK, she learned about the opportunities GX Foundation provided for young people who want to participate in overseas humanitarian services, so she applied for an internship. In April, she traveled to Cambodia’s Prey Veng province for a 10-day internship, during which she assisted in surgical supply management and other field work.

“The on-site work is riddled with challenges. Among them is the preparation and transfer of surgical supplies prior to the surgery, which is a race against time and very physically demanding. It is also necessary to overcome language barriers and be responsive to power cuts at the hospital,” she said.

GX Foundation's interns Jessie Yeung and Vicky Lee move bulks of medical supplies during their volunteering stint on April 24, 2023. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

Anxious at the beginning about fitting in with the medical team from the Chinese mainland due to the age difference and the discrepancies in the medical systems, Yeung breathed a sigh of relief after spending 10 days with the Guangxi medical team, the members of which she found were very approachable. Not only do they have high professional standards, but the doctors and nurses are also willing to impart eye examination skills to her, such as using the slit lamp and tonometer, encouraging her to practice with patients, she said. “I am very grateful to the medical team for allowing me to observe the cataract surgeries up close on the Mobile Eye Treatment Centre (METC), and explaining each of the steps in detail. It was an eye-opening experience,” she said.

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Yeung’s most memorable patient was a woman in her 80s who clasped her hands and thanked her emotionally after the operation. “At that time, I just picked up the basic knowledge of using the slit lamp to examine cataracts in patients, and the elderly woman whose condition was relatively severe was my first patient. It just felt so satisfying to help people.”

She continued: “The project connects people from different culture and backgrounds — the Chinese medical team, GX colleagues from Hong Kong and Cambodia, and local volunteers — who came together fighting concertedly for a collective goal. That’s precisely what we call ‘people-to-people connection’.”

GX Foundation's intern Vicky Lee performs pre-surgery blood glucose check-up for cataract patients. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

From March to May, Lee was with the GX team in Laos and Cambodia for the Cataract Blindness Elimination Projects, learning eye examinations skills from the Guangxi medical team, observing the surgery process on the METC, and performing pre-operative check-ups, including taking blood pressure, and testing blood glucose and intraocular pressure. Apart from the clinical training, she also worked on behind-the-scenes tasks such as surgical supply management, on-site set up, and project promotion.

What will never leave her is the moment when a patient, who had the gauze pad removed and could see the world, stopped by to ask every employee to take off their face masks, hoping to catch the first clear sight of their faces. Lee considered teamwork an overriding component in such humanitarian project. “It takes a combined effort to overcome all the challenges.”

As a platform for young people to get in on international humanitarian work, GX recruits interns and volunteers every year who have backgrounds in medicine or public health. Caroline Dubois, GX Foundation assistant project director, finds the work involved includes a diverse range of disciplines, which expect new blood with various areas of expertise to do their bit.

“We work in developing countries where the living conditions and supporting facilities are very different from those in Hong Kong. We expect endurance in student interns, who are willing to communicate and work together with the team to solve problems, because we often face many unimaginable hardships,” she said.

Foundation CEO Emily Chan Ying-yang once remarked in an interview with China Daily Hong Kong that while many young people in Hong Kong are very keen to embark on some humanitarian volunteering work, they often find their hands tied after they attempted to find an appropriate project or fitting organization in vain. The GX Foundation lends the exact platform that they have been looking for, which embraces everyone from any background and discipline, as long as they have generosity to spread around and a genuine desire to lend a humanitarian hand.

From 2023 to 2027, GX will be providing free cataract surgeries to restore vision for 37,500 patients in Laos, Cambodia, Djibouti, Senegal and Mauritania, according to the memorandums of understanding signed with the five countries. The project aims to eliminate the backlog cases of blindness caused by age-related cataracts.