I make fake eyes for those who need them
As the only ocularist in Uganda, Franklin Wasswa produces customized prosthetic eyes for people who’ve lost their own to injury or disease
“I’m the only ocularist in Uganda. Apart from me, there’s no one in the country to make prosthetic eyes for people who have lost or damaged their own. In this photo, taken in June at my office in Entebbe, I’m painting an ocular prosthesis for a nursery schoolteacher who lost an eye to cancer.
I began learning my craft after training as a clinician in the United States. I did most of my ocularist training there, too, but also did some in Ghana. I choose to live in Uganda because there is a big need for my skills here, and I like the lifestyle. You work to live, you don’t live to work.
When making a prosthetic eye, I measure the socket space and create a mould, which I then refine, paint and polish. Polishing takes a long time, and can be boring, but you need to get the surface perfectly smooth or it might irritate the surrounding tissues and allow germs to grow.
Matching the colours of the iris and sclera — the white of the eye — with the wearer’s own colouring takes skill, practice and determination. I find Black people’s irises more difficult to paint than the eyes of white people. Our irises might look almost black, but under a direct light you find depths of colour, and that effect is not easy to pull off. I have a variety of lamps on my desk to mimic different lighting conditions.
I can make about four prostheses a week. That’s nowhere near enough to serve all the people in Uganda who need them, but for the rest, there are stock eyes that are imported from India. Sadly, those are often poorly made and they are rarely a good match for Africans. In Uganda, they are sometimes referred to as sheep’s eyes, because of how unnatural they look.
As well as being an ocularist, I’m a general practitioner and ophthalmologist, but crafting prosthetics is my favourite thing to do. I also work with researchers who study the social impact of prosthetic eyes.”
Nature 633, 486 (2024)
doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-02923-3
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
This story originally appeared on: Nature - Author:Linda Nordling
