Lions for Sight campaign surpasses fundraising goal for new cataract surgery equipment for Peterborough hospital

The Lions for Sight campaign helped raise more than $202,000 for new cataract surgery equipment at Peterborough Regional Health Centre.

At the hospital on Thursday morning, officials unveiled the final tally of $202,669.68, topping the $200,000 goal. The campaign saw 26 Lions Clubs from districts A3 and A16 combine their fundraising efforts along with a grant of $88,149.68 from the Lions Club International Foundation.

An additional $15,000 donation came from physicians who make up the PRHC ophthalmology group.

The funds enabled the PRHC Foundation to purchase a new cataract surgical unit and camera for the hospital’s cataract surgical program.

PRHC performs 3,000 such surgeries annually for patients throughout Peterborough, the City of Kawartha Lakes and Northumberland and Haliburton counties.

“The Lions for Sight initiative has funded state-of-the-art cataract surgical, enabling PRHC’s medical experts to deliver improved results, offering even safer surgical procedures with less trauma to the eye and shorter recovery times,” said PRHC Foundation president and CEO Lesley Heighway.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "The Lions for Sight initiative has funded state-of-the-art cataract surgical, enabling PRHC's medical experts to deliver improved results, offering even safer surgical procedures with less trauma to the eye and shorter recovery times," said PRHC Foundation president and CEO Lesley Heighway.

The campaign was created as a Lions International Centennial Community Project, recognizing the Lions’ century-long dedication to the visually impaired.

“We’re very pleased to join with clubs from across the region to support the technology that can help eliminate unnecessary blindness,” said Carl Young, president of the Fowlers Corners & District Lions Club past-president. “(It’s) changing lives for our loved ones, friends and neighbours, whose vision is clouded by cataracts and for whom simple pleasures have become difficult, if not impossible.”