An American YouTuber has enabled 1,000 visually impaired people around the world to regain vision by paying for their operation.
“We are curing the blindness of a thousand people,” mentioned Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast, in the introduction to his video which reached 62 million views on Tuesday in just two days.
The video presents a montage of the reactions of patients regaining their sight following their operation. The youtubeur even took the opportunity to offer money and gifts to some participants.
It was with the help of Dr. Jeff Levenson, ophthalmologist and surgeon, that MrBeast began his project with the first round of operations in Jacksonville, Florida. This is a cause close to Dr. Levenson’s heart, having coordinated the Gift of Sight program for over 20 years. This program offers the operation to people who are legally blind due to their cataracts.
“Half of all blindness cases in the world are people who need 10-minute surgery,” he explained in the video.
In an interview with CNN, the ophthalmologist mentioned having wanted to offer access to the correction of cataracts following having himself undergone this intervention.
“In the days and weeks following my own cataract surgery, I was amazed at how bright, beautiful and alive the world was,” he said. But I was shocked to think that there are hundreds of millions, probably 200 million people in the world who are blind or nearly blind from cataracts and don’t have access to surgery. .”
Not knowing the youtubeur, the doctor said he was happy not to have hung up when he was contacted by a member of his team. They then busied themselves with contacting centers for itinerant people and free clinics in order to establish a list of patients who needed cataract correction but might not afford it.
According to Dr Levenson, the patients were ‘in disbelief that someone was looking for them to save them from blindness’.
The ophthalmologist then connected the MrBeast team with “SEE International” to offer the procedure to people in Jamaica, Honduras, Namibia, Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil, Vietnam and Kenya.
“If MrBeast can start a fire, and if we can get government and private support, we can end half of all blindness in the world,” concluded Dr. Levenson, who hopes the YouTuber’s gesture will inspire many. .
MrBeast is the most followed youtuber in the world. He is particularly known for his videos in which we see him appealing for donations to his fans to support charities or people in need.
