A GPHC press release said it was the second visit by the team to Guyana. The team first visited in July, when they completed 11 transplants in three days.
Dr Rahul Jindal, who had already performed 26 kidney transplants here, led the group. He was accompanied by two corneal transplant surgeons, Dr Stephen Waller and Dr Joseph Pasternak, from the USA, along with Dr. Shailendra Sugrim, Head of the Ophthalmology Department and the theatre nurses.
Dr Sugrim had previously undergone meticulous training with Dr. Pasternak, the principal surgeon, and is now the first Guyanese Ophthalmic Surgeon to have completed a corneal transplant in Guyana, qualifying him to perform this surgery on his own.
GPHC also said Dr. Waller, who worked assiduously to acquire corneas from the USA to bring to Guyana, has also been advocating for the establishment of a local Eye Bank, since the procurement and preservation of corneas from deceased donors is vital as it provides local surgeons access to tissue to perform these surgeries.
The two US-based surgeons from the medical team also spoke on the topics of Corneal Transplants and the Burden of Visual Diseases in Guyana at the World Sight Day Medical Education lecture, hosted by the Ministry of Public Health, GPHC and CCB Eye Care Guyana on October 9th. Patients who underwent the surgery were very grateful to team and George Subraj, founder of the Subraj Foundation. The visit was financed entirely by the Foundation, which has promised to assist in the upgrading of GPHC’s ophthalmic theatre.
