Viettel to Offer Free Eye Surgeries to 200 Poor Patients

Vietnam-based Military Telecom Group, or Viettel May 12 donated VND400 million ($20,997) to the Central Eye Hospital to provide free-of-charge eye surgeries for 200 Vietnamese and Lao cataract patients. The charitable program will benefit 150 unlucky people in Laos and 50 others in Thanh Hoa province in central Vietnam, the Quan Doi Nhan Dan newspaper reported. The hospital has performed free operations on 300 people catching the eye diseases since 2007.  Vietnam identifies up to 85,000 new people with two-eye blindness and the same number with one-eye blindness due to cataract each year.