Decision-Making and Factors Influencing the Decision to Undergo Trichiasis Surgery Sample Clauses

Decision-Making and Factors Influencing the Decision to Undergo Trichiasis Surgery. In almost every case, the decision to be operated involved no forethought or pre-planning. Instead, the decision was made on the spot when a surgical team arrived in a village to diagnose and transport patients to surgical camps: The children saw the car and cried out, ‘the trichiasis surgery car is here, the trichiasis surgery car is here!’ At the time, I was working but I said, ‘I’m going to go see,’ and I freshened up and left. After looking at my eyes, he [the surgeon] told me there was trichiasis in my eyes, and I accepted to be operated (Operated Woman, 50, Zinder Commune). The majority of operated women stated, at times insistently, they had made their own decision to be operated, though many stated that while they had made their own decision, they still informed their husbands, co-wives, brothers, or other family members, who then accepted the patient’s choice: I didn’t have time to ask, as soon as I heard of the arrival of the team, I ran, and when I arrived, I asked them to examine me too, and as soon as she [the surgeon] saw me, she told me, ‘You see, you have swollen eyes, I don’t even need to look. You have trichiasis.’ And I said I had to go tell the house, so I found my husband and told him that there were many of us and I was lucky to be chosen. He told me to go ahead and get operated (Operated Woman, 60, Zinder Commune). In another case the woman stated that she made her own decision to be operated at the hospital in the district capital; however, she did not have the means to pay for it and needed her husband’s approval in order to obtain the necessary funds. In a few cases, other family members, such as women’s children or husband, made the decision on behalf of the patient, who then accepted their decision. Several unoperated patients also suggested that the decision not to be operated was made not by themselves, but by a health agent. One patient, when asked by the interviewer if she wanted to be operated, stated, “Of course. Whatever the distance I would have to travel, even if I didn’t have the means for transport, I would go, because I’d like to recover my eye health, if really you [referring to the interviewer whom she thought was a health agent] think it’s time for me to be operated” (Unoperated Woman, 35, Zinder Commune). When the interviewer pressed her as to why she had not been operated when previously diagnosed, she said, “He [the surgeon] said that for me, it’s very little, it can’t be operated, and I said ok. Since then, ev...