Jenna Bartz Acid/Base Problem

Jenna^* wears rigid gas permeable (RGP) contact lenses. One day she examines the bottle of her conditioning solution, and discovers that the solution is described as "a sterile, aqueous buffered, cationic solution."

a.) Why might the conditioning solution need to be buffered?

b.) How does the buffer respond when the conditioning solution comes in contact with OH^- ions?
H⁺ ions? Salt (in tears)? (Don't cry Jenna, you can always come back to visit Chem 13H!)

c.) The bottle also reads "not for use with soft (hydrophilic) contact lenses." Why might this be?

^*Jenna Bartz took Chem 13H in 2000, and then was the grader for the class the following year, 2001. She helped design the homeworks for 2002, but did not select this problem.