Master Your Destiny

Dr. Helena Ndume - Giving Humanity the Gift of Sight

Known reverently as the ‘Miracle Doctor’, Dr. Ndume has treated some 30 000 blind Namibians since 1997. In 2009 she was honoured with a humanitarian award presented by the Namibia Red Cross Society for her work in restoring sight to those blinded by cataracts. Today she is Head of the Ophthalmology Department at Windhoek Central Hospital.

In recognition of her dedicated service to humanity, Dr. Ndume received the first United Nations Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela Prize in 2015. A hero to the tens of thousands of Namibians she has treated, Dr. Ndume joined 99FM’s Master Your Destiny to discuss what being a hero means to her.

Born in Tsumeb, young Helena Ndume went into exile at the age of 15. She attended school in the Gambia and later returned to the SWAPO headquarters in Luanda, Angola. After working in the transport department for a year, she was sent to Germany to study medicine.

“Medicine was my second choice. My first choice was to become a fashion designer. And Nahas Angula, who was the Secretary of Education at that time, said, ‘This fashion design of yours is just rubbish. Namibia does not need fashion designers, we need doctors’.”

Dr. Ndume’s passion for fashion thus had to be put on a back burner because coming from a traditional African community meant that she was not raised to argue and was expected to follow the instructions of her elders. But despite feeling despondent at the time, looking back, she is grateful to have listened.

Namibian modern heroism:

“Everyone is a hero, in small or big ways. By helping someone who is in difficulty or danger, you can become a hero for that person,” Dr. Ndume says.

For her, a hero should not have to be a Helena Ndume or Nelson Mandela because heroes come in all shapes. “Every person has his or her own heroes – that’s how I see it.”

Pursuing a heroic path:

Cataract operations are not supposed to be expensive, but they are. Because of that, Dr. Ndume galvanised NGOs from across the world to help her treat patients with the condition.

Surgical Eye Expeditions International, which is based in Santa Barbara, California, has been helping since 1998, providing all the supplies that poor people cannot afford. “Many people cannot afford to pay for a cataract operation in a private practice. So that’s why we have to go out and give them this operation free of charge,” Dr. Ndume says.

Every day she is reminded of why she chose the path of restoring vision among the needy. “Seeing these blind people after we’ve operated on them inspires me: the previously blind person eating fish, taking the bones out of it; a woman, six months after delivery, sees her baby for the first time after the operation. These things will always make you go back.”

Helena’s story is part of a series celebrating Namibians in partnership with Master Your Destiny. Read more in the MYD Journal at: www.issuu. com/99fm/docs/99fm_myd_book_2018 Catch MYD Heart on 99FM, Mondays to Fridays on ‘The Pulse’ at 17H35.