PNCR-1G MP Dr George Norton is recommending that the government commission a study to determine the success or failure rate of the Cuban Miracle Eye Care programme in Guyana.
In his presentation in the recent budget debate, Norton suggested that the study could be done by the University of Guyana Medical School because of complications some of the beneficiaries of the programme claim they have experienced.
Dr Norton, who is head of the Ophthalmology Depart-ment of the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC), contended that such a study was done by Jamaica after a number of patients had been sent to Cuba for surgery and “operation Miracle was found to be less than miraculous for Jamaican patients.”
He said the result of this study was presented at the 17th Congress of the Ophthalmological Society of the West Indies in St George’s, Grenada last year July by Dr Albert Lu, Head of the Department of Ophthal-mology of the Kingston Public Hospital.
Dr Lu revealed that 14 out of a sample of 60 Jamaican patients experienced serious complications. “Complica-tions similar to the one we saw suffered by Guyanese patients – the few that we managed to look at (privately),” he said.
The complications included secondary glaucoma, cloudiness of the cornea, damage of the iris, posterior chamber lens in anterior chamber and poor stitching techniques. Dr Norton quoted Dr Lu as saying that the problems were as a result of “poor surgical techniques”.
The Jamaican study covered 200 patients and 49 (almost 25%) experienced post-surgical complications, Dr Norton said, adding that was a good reason for recommending that a similar survey among beneficiaries in Guyana be done here with some amount of urgency.
“Unless we are informed of what is the true situation with the Cuban Operation Miracle, rumours will have it that the authorities are playing politics with the health and welfare of the Guyanese population or the Guyanese population has become a pawn in an international chess game of politics involving Cuba and Venezuela, or, in a worse case scenario that the Guyanese patients are being used as guinea pigs for resident ophthalmologists in training in Cuba,” Dr Norton said. “We are asking you to tell us, let us know what is going on.”
Asking whether the operation was a military secret, Dr Norton said, “Having one surgery completed was very important to the patient but obtaining a reasonable amount of success was far more important in all cases and this is where the problem lies. What is the success rate of these surgeries? No one knows for sure for no study was done to our knowledge by the Cubans nor by us since we had no official access to these patients. Their follow up was also done by the Cubans here in Guyana.”
Stating that he was grateful to the Cuban government for offering Guyanese the opportunity to benefit from the Cuban health care system, he, however added that it was somewhat strange that the whole project was being treated with secrecy.
He said Minister of Health, Dr Leslie Ramsammy was not forthcoming with information even though he, as head of the Ophthalmology Department of the GPHC had asked him about the programme. The Medical Director of Professional and Medical Services of the hospital also claimed that all he knew of the project was what was in the press, Dr Norton contended.
He said he saw the setting up of a parallel eye clinic run by Cuban doctors using one of the rooms of the eye clinic in the department he was supposed to be in charge of and he was not even extended the courtesy of an introduction as department head. The clerks were warned, he alleged, by the administration not to tell the public that they knew anything of the project.
Fortunately or unfortunately, he said, he studied in Cuba for ten years doing undergraduate and post-graduate studies.
Dr Norton said what was clear was that patients booked for surgery at the GPHC “were not turning up for surgery on their scheduled day” because they went off to Cuba
