Work ongoing to develop Guyana’s “Eye Bank” – Health Minister

Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony has informed that Government is moving closer to establish an eye bank, enabling better services for persons requiring corneal transplants.

It was highlighted that corneal transplants are conducted at the Georgetown Public Hospital. In recent years, over 100 such operations have been done. With this facility, corneas can be donated and will be readily available for patients in need.
“We have, right now in the works, the development of an eye bank where we will be able to produce our own corneas so that the persons who would need them can get them from patients that we have locally or donors that would have donated their cornea,” the Health Minister relayed.
The Ministry has been working across the public health system to increase access to ophthalmology services.
Since taking office, he said efforts were made to completely rehabilitate the National Ophthalmology Hospital in Region Six, since it was in a deplorable state with defunct equipment. Programmes were also restarted.
“If we start at the level of the National Ophthalmology Hospital, we were able to rehabilitate the hospital. It was in a very bad state when we came back to Government. The microscopes, theatres, services that were being offered were very minimal. All the microscopes in the theatre were not really working.
Given that a significant portion of people also suffer from diabetes, the Health Minister said retinopathy services have also been expanded to ably serve the population.

“One of the challenges we have in managing diabetic patients is that you have to do evaluation of the person’s retina to see whether there is deterioration in the retina, something that is called retinopathy. To do that, you need specialised equipment so we have been able to expand services where it is not just offered at the Georgetown Public Hospital but we have at least three other sites offering screening for retinopathy.”
In a month, a snap-on programme will soon be introduced, whereby some 4000 persons in remote areas will benefit from immediate treatment and spectacles for their respective complications.
“We would be able to offer spectacles for persons in remote communities, where we will be able to screen them to see whether they have an eye problem and if they do, to be able to rectify it almost instantly by giving them the spectacles,” he expressed.
In most instances, persons expressing eye complications suffer from short or long sightedness, which is typically corrected with spectacles. With age comes the development of cataract, which can be removed via surgery.
In the past week, World Sight Day was celebrated under the theme “Love Your Eye”. This annual observance is geared at raising awareness and promoting good eye health, while advocating for regular screening.
In August, it was reported that the National Ophthalmology Hospital at Port Mourant, Corentyne, had a backlog of some 1500 cataract surgeries still to be performed, and authorities were working assiduously to reduce this number. At the beginning of this year, this backlog had stood at 2100 surgeries. (G12)