One of four retrofitted trains, Lifeline Express treating cataracts in Xinjiang

For five years, 72-year-old retiree Abliz Bawdun has endured reading newspapers and tending to the apricot trees in his backyard through a thick fog that has obscured the left half of his field of vision.

His problem was cataracts, a common condition where milky white patches of protein cloud the lens of the eye, resulting in vision loss that can develop into a complete loss of sight if left untreated.

But following an operation that took less than 20 minutes to complete and was performed aboard a special surgical train in early June, Abliz's sight has been restored.

"Holding a leaf in my hand, I can now even see the veins clearly," he said on Wednesday.

Abliz is one of the 903 cataract patients in southeastern Xinjiang's Bayingolin Mongol autonomous prefecture to have regained their eyesight thanks to the Lifeline Express, a train converted into a mobile hospital that offers free cataract operations to the financially challenged.

The project was launched in 1997 in Hong Kong and to date, its four retrofitted trains have traveled to 28 provincial-level regions, as well as to four countries that are part of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Some 220,000 cataract patients have had their eyesight restored as a result, according to project operator, the Chinese Foundation for Lifeline Express.

The train Abliz was operated on was donated by the China Petrochemical Corp, or Sinopec, in 2004.It arrived in Korla city in Bayingolin on May 7, carrying five senior eye surgeons and nurses from Beijing Chaoyang Hospital affiliated to Capital Medical University, as well as two officials from the National Health Commission's International Health Exchange and Cooperation Center.

"Due to low awareness of the condition, the lack of suitable nearby healthcare services and financial concerns over surgery fees, many patients have delayed medical intervention for so long that their cataracts have turned rock-hard and dark in color," said Wang Yuezhen, an official from the center who is in charge of the train. "More than 80 percent of our patients are 60 or older. The oldest was 92, and the youngest was 38."

The surgery compartment is equipped with state-of-the-art sterilizers, microscopes and testing equipment.

"We are able to measure lenses more precisely and ensure patients get better eyesight after surgery," she said.

Feng Jing, an ophthalmologist from Beijing Chaoyang Hospital, said that as a result of the equipment, the length of the incision required was reduced from 3 millimeters to 2.8 mm during the train's last mission.

"This means that patients are able to recover faster from surgery," she said.

Since the first surgery was performed on May 17, a total of 903 patients had been operated on as of Friday, according to the foundation.

One thousand surgeries are expected to have been completed by the time the mission concludes in Xinjiang at the end of this month.

In the coming months, the train will call at Jincheng, Shanxi province, and Shaoguan, Guangdong province, and finish its annual mission around November, according to the foundation.