Enough doctors to deal with eye care

THIS country has enough local doctors to solve the nation eye-care problems, head of the Ophthalmology Department at the San Fernando General Hospital Dr Anil Armoogam said shortly after he and a ten-person medical team performed ten free cataract eye-surgeries at the Gulf View Medical Centre, La Romaine last week.

“We have enough local talent available to solve our own problems.” Armoogam said the venture was the first he had ever done privately though noted that the hospital had an ongoing project to reduce the number of patients on the waiting list.

“This was a charity drive where we identify patients in desperate need of cataract surgeries and do it for them at no cost to the patient. We identified ten patients with advanced cataracts, most of them in both eyes and for whatever reason be it financial or lack of family support or did not attend the more traditional clinics in the hospital or privately, we targeted those patients. They came on one visit, they were assessed, put on the list and then came in a second time to have it done.”

He said the ten member team also consisted of nurses, doctors and other medical personnel who had all volunteered their time to perform the surgeries.

He however noted that a major sponsor was the staff of the RBC Gulf View branch who found out about the venture and donated towards the project.