Health officials say from January to the end of June of this year, the applications of 560 persons were approved.
Of that figure, 365 Bahamians have visited Cuba, received ophthalmologic treatment and have already returned home.
The opportunity comes by way of Cubaﾒs ‘Miracle Operation’ program, which allows Caribbean citizens with serious eye problems to visit the communist countryﾒs top ophthalmologists free of charge.
The goal is to provide the free treatment to as many as some six million inhabitants in Latin America and the Caribbean over the next several years.
But regional reports say several patients are now suffering from serious complications, reportedly stemming from those surgeries.
Dr. Albert Lue, head of the ophthalmology department at Kingston Public Hospital surgery has revealed that several Jamaicans who have received eye surgery in Cuba are experiencing poor visual activity.
According to Dr. Lue, in a survey of 60 patients, who recently returned to Jamaica, three persons are now visually impaired, while 14 are suffering serious corneal damage.
There have since been calls for the programme to be suspended and that an assessment be carried out to determine whether it met appropriate standards.
In defence, Cuban officials have argued that complications from these eye operations are less than two percent of the total number of people who have gone to the island.
Meantime, Health Minister Senator, Dr. Bernard Nottage said while he cannot rule out that there may have been complications in some cases, a large number of letters have poured in from Bahamian patients and/or their families applauding the service they received and the way they were treated.
“Many of these patients who may have had eye problems were not attending physicians. In some of them ﾖ just because they could not afford it and some because they were not able to access the service. But a screening programme was carried out where people who had problems could be evaluated by Cuban physicians,” he explained.
“But I understand that initially there was a concern expressed by some local physicians as to whether or not it was necessary for the programme. Some of them even indicated that they were not prepared to provide post-care for patients who had gone to Cuba. But that post-care has now been offered in Cuba. And so for us, it has gone extremely well and Bahamians who have been part of it have been very satisfied with what they have received.”
According to World Health Organization (WHO) figures, there are 50 million blind people worldwide, of whom more than 1.5 million are children under 16.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, there are reportedly more than 4.5 million individuals suffering from preventable blindness.
Meantime, Cuban officials have promised that if more doctors and hospitals can be found outside Cuba, “Operation Miracle” will expand to 500,000 operations a year in 2006.
By: Macushla N. Pinder, The Bahama Journal
