Israeli medical specialists from the Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer Hospital wrapped up a humanitarian mission to Papua New Guinea in the southwestern Pacific earlier this month, having restored the eyesight of over 80 visually impaired people living in the eastern half of the island of New Guinea, the hospital announced.

The ophthalmology experts from the Goldschleger Eye Institute at Sheba were dispatched by the hospital’s Israel Center for Disaster Medicine and Humanitarian Response department and were part of a 10-member Israeli team sent on the mission. The doctors, headed by Dr. Eva Platner, a vitreo-retina specialist, performed cataract surgeries on villagers in an operating theater on a medical ship that set off from Australia, sailing the coast of the island while trying to reach as many villages as possible.

The mission launched earlier this month in collaboration with the humanitarian NGO NATAN – International Humanitarian Aid, and at the request of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, concluding on February 11. The 10-member Israeli team was part of a delegation of 120 people from 20 nations working with Youth With a Mission, an Australian organization that regularly delivers aid and services via medical ships to rural and isolated areas in Papua New Guinea and some of its off-shore islands.

The Israeli team screened patients for cataract surgeries, most of whom were blind in both eyes because of neglected cataracts, Sheba Medical Center said. Cataracts, a clouding of the lens of the eye that leads to impaired vision over time, are generally treatable with the right medical care.