Visions of Mustang

This film follows a medical team, seemingly financed from the U.S. as it goes into the upper reaches of Nepal, and to Mustang to offer primarily eye care services to this remote population.

Mustang must still be one of the most remote places on earth, and, as it is at high altitude, many people suffer from eye problems, especially cataracts and the like, which can have an overwhelmingly deleterious effect on their life prospects.

Eye surgeon Scott W. Hamilton (who is also the executive producer of the film) teamed together with the Himalaya Eye Hospital, and volunteer monks from the Pema Ts’al Sakya Monastery, both based in Pokhara to bring the camps into this remote area.

They seem to have held around seven clinics, some in very remote regions, only accessible on horseback, which brought in scores of people; and two in the capital Lo Manthang, where maybe a thousand attended.

The main service provided during the exercise was to provide free spectacles to those in need and to arrange for cataract operations for a large number of patients. Some of the scenes are very moving, especially when old folk, who were virtually blind, find they can see again.

All of this is set against the beautiful Mustang countryside, and with the full cooperation of the humble King of Mustang, monasteries and monastics alike, whose services were invaluable in giving people confidence, providing translation services and helping with the work involved in running the camps.