Yahneake Sterling, Staff Reporter
DALLEY
ALL JAMAICAN patients who suffered corneal damage and post-operational complications from the Cuban 'Miracle Eye Operation' will receive free surgeries to correct their problems from that country's top ophthalmologists.
According to Minister of Health, Horace Dalley, who recently returned from Cuba, "The Cuban Government will be offering care to all patients who experienced post-operation difficulties. Additionally, two senior ophthalmologists will be visiting the island to conduct post-operative care along with local ophthalmologists."
The health minister, in an interview with The Gleaner, said the programme will continue. "We are satisfied with the programme, the way our people are treated, the very, very high-tech equipment and high level of attention our patients receive," Mr. Dalley said.
WORLD-CLASS FACILITIES
Dr. Alverston Bailey, president of the Medical Association of Jamaica (MAJ), who was part of the team that visited Cuba, echoed the sentiments of the Health Minister.
Describing the Cuban facilities as world class, the MAJ president said, "Our Jamaican patients are in good hands. There is absolutely no reason at present which would validate discontinuation of the programme."
"I do not think that our patients are being sent into harm's way," he added, stressing that the team was convinced that the staff at the facilities had the requisite skills to do the surgery that they were asked to do.
Mr. Dalley also dismissed claims by a local doctor that the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH) would no longer be a screening centre for the 'Miracle Eye Operation.'
"Whoever said that is mischievous, nobody in the Ministry of Health has ever said that KPH would no longer be a screening centre," Mr. Dalley stressed.
"I met with ophthalmologists up to last Wednesday, I reiterated that my objective is to have the Jamaican and Cuban ophthalmologists working together in the main centres at KPH, Mandeville Regional Hospital and Cornwall Regional Hospital," he said. "It is mischievous; someone is mischievous."
Reports that the Cuban Miracle Eye Operation programme was flawed came to the attention of the media last month when Dr. Albert Lue, head of the Ophthalmology Department at the KPH, proclaimed that several patients, who had received eye surgery from Cuba, were experiencing poor visual activity.
Dr. Lue argued that the complications were due to poor surgical techniques.
