Upcoming Mission
Honduras
February 2027
Restore Sight is preparing for a future mission to Honduras in 2027, continuing our long-standing commitment to bringing critical eye care to underserved communities in Central America.
In Honduras, patients often endure long wait times for care due to limited surgical access, economic barriers, and a shortage of specialized providers. Our missions focus on treating preventable and correctable causes of blindness, conditions that, left untreated, can affect an individual for a lifetime.
By planning ahead, Restore Sight ensures the sustainability of our mission work and allows supporters to invest in future trips that will transform lives through the gift of sight.
Past Missions
El Salvador Medical Mission 2026
Our most recent Restore Sight mission took place on February 20, 2026, in San Miguel, El Salvador, a region where access to specialized eye care is extremely limited and patients often wait years, sometimes a lifetime, for treatment.
During this mission, our multidisciplinary medical team performed 199 sight restoring surgeries, completed 25 laser procedures, and screened more than 375 patients for sight threatening eye disease. We cared for individuals suffering from advanced cataracts, strabismus, trauma related vision loss, and other complex eye conditions that would otherwise go untreated. Many patients arrived with severe vision impairment that limited their ability to work, care for loved ones, or live independently.
Restore Sight brought together volunteer ophthalmologists, optometrists, residents, and support staff from across the United States to deliver life changing surgical and medical eye care. Through this work, we not only restored vision, but also renewed independence, dignity, and hope for patients and families throughout the region.
Past Missions
Honduras Medical Mission 2025
The nominal GDP per capita in Honduras is around $2,527 (2023 est.), indicating a relatively low level of economic output per person. This level of poverty, as in El Salvador, is reflected in the delivery and access to healthcare. Our eye surgical mission trips thru the years have made meaningful impact on the lives and productivity of the affected individuals. Invariably we take patients who otherwise are led to the surgical facility and make them functional again thru sight restoring cataract surgeries. Worldwide, cataracts are the most common cause of reversible blindness. Honduras and a lot of impoverished countries are no exception. The efforts and logistics in executing these trips are immense. We must anticipate and think of all the possibilities as we prepare for all the surgeries and procedures. The generosity of many and yours in particular are so impactful. Our care is so vital and well received that many of our patients wait for their second eye’s cataract removal two years after their first eye’s surgery.
This year we arrived to Comayagua on Feb 21. Our team consisted of six surgeons, four University of Cincinnati ophthalmology residents and twenty-two support staff. Over a two-day period, we screened around 325 patients and provided 211 surgeries the majority of which were cataract removal (179) some combined with glaucoma shunts, pterygium removals (21), strabismus and various other lid surgeries (11). We also had a local surgical fellow and resident ophthalmologist join us for teaching and assisting in post op care.
As last year, your generous grant allowed us to buy much needed supplies and equipment. We were able to buy two sterilizers, a YAG laser machine, a portable intraocular pressure pen, an indirect ophthalmoscope, and much needed other miscellaneous medical supplies. We were also able to pay for some of the shipping and storage needs. Our needs moving forward are still in portable cataract surgery machines (phaco machines). We specked two newer portable machines thru our vendors. They worked beautifully and their local reps came from Panama to present us with their best offer considering our scope of work. We are still going thru the numbers, but their best price is in the 38K dollar range. Our goal is to raise enough funds to purchase two of them. I am asking for your continued support and generosity as we continue serving others and filling our continued surgical and medical needs.
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Hisham Arar, MD
Restore Sight Volunteer Doctor