Giving statistics…

THE National Ophthalmology Centre at Port Mourant, Corentyne, Berbice, provided eye care services for 15, 500 people from its July 2009 establishment to early November 2010.
The staff undertook 27,500 consultations and performed 500 cataract surgeries, 800 pterygium surgeries for thickening of the outer coating of the eye, 109 laser surgeries and about 13,000 refractions, Minister within the Ministry of Health, Dr. Bheri Ramsaran informed.
He said eye care, nationally, including at Mahaicony Hospital and Diamond Diagnostic Centre also included outreaches to outlying areas such as St. Cuthbert’s Mission, Timehri and Christianburg, all evidence of the commitment of the ministry to the concept that every Guyanese has the right to sight.
Ramsaran disclosed the statistics at a farewell for two Guyanese doctors who left for training, as eye care specialists, in Guatemala, in keeping with a national human resources development drive for ophthalmologists and their services.
Speaking of eye care delivery by the Ministry of Health last year and in the latter half of 2009, he said the Port Mourant facility served as a referral clinic for treatment after screening had been done at hospitals in other areas and during outreaches and had served well.
Ramsaran said a special feature of screening activities was that patients, who were identified for cataract or pterygium surgery, were sent, free of charge, to Port Mourant where they undergo the operations as soon as they arrive, from wherever, geographically, they may have been screened.
“For example, at Diamond we screen patients for eye diseases every week day, Monday to Friday. We screen on an average 60 to 70 patients a week. And, twice a week, on Tuesday and Thursday, a chartered minibus leaves the Diamond Hospital for the Port Mourant Hospital with patients needing surgery,” he said.
Ramsaran explained: “The bus leaves at 06:00hrs.  Everything is free of charge, screening, transportation and refreshments. They go to Port Mourant, where they are expected to, and they get their surgery. It is hassle free. They don’t have to wait in a line and, by night, the same bus transports them back to Georgetown and, in many cases, takes them home.”
He continued: “This movement of referrals to Port Mourant is also done from Mahaicony and, as we get the screening programme fully functioning, we will be going to more and more centres to do similar work.”

Successful
Ramsaran said the eight outreaches undertaken had all been successful.
“I was very happy with the response in Christianburg and at the Maha Kali Church in Timehri. We visited several communities and we screened many people and took them for treatment at Port Mourant,” he related.
Ramsaran pointed out that, in the case of St. Cuthbert’s patients, the ministry hired a boat to sail them out to the coast and then, by bus to Port Mourant, where they had surgeries.
He said, due to the distance for them to get back home, they were kept overnight at Port Mourant before returning the following day, the same way they went to Berbice.
Ramsaran said, too, that the pool of young Guyanese doctors trained in eye care is growing.
One of them, Dr. S. Sugrim graduated, recently, from training in Bangladesh and is now attached to the Eye Care Department in Georgetown.
Ramsaran said the Georgetown staff will work in keeping with the capabilities of their equipment but maintain a close working relationship with Port Mourant.
He said the records show that eye care is on the front burner of the Health Ministry and has been accessed by Guyanese from all over Guyana.
“There has been an aggressive outreach programme to poor and vulnerable communities and we are also training young doctors interested in ophthalmology, giving them professional progression and the skills to make our eye care investment sustainable,”
Ramsaran said.
He added that, this year, the Ministry will be placing more emphasis on visits and eye care for indigenous peoples and others in remote rural communities.