The North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NCRHA) says it has suc­cess­ful­ly per­formed some 300 cataract surg­eries at the Cou­va Hos­pi­tal and Mul­ti Train­ing Fa­cil­i­ty over a three-month pe­ri­od.

The Au­thor­i­ty re­ports that the 300 cataract surg­eries were con­duct­ed at the Cou­va Med­ical and Mul­ti Train­ing Fa­cil­i­ty, uti­liz­ing an en­hanced sur­gi­cal sched­ule and the col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­forts of skilled med­ical pro­fes­sion­als and ad­min­is­tra­tive staff, led by Dr She­henaz Mo­hammed, lead and sole sur­geon on the team.

“Thus far, the Cou­va Med­ical and Mul­ti Train­ing Fa­cil­i­ty cataract surgery ini­tia­tive has record­ed a re­mark­able 100% suc­cess rate—with a 0% com­pli­ca­tion rate—marked with sig­nif­i­cant im­prove­ment in every sin­gle pa­tient,” the NCRHA re­vealed in a news re­lease.

“This un­der­tak­ing, which has on­ly tak­en place on week­ends, through a sched­uled sys­tem, was im­ple­ment­ed with the aim to de­crease the num­ber of pa­tients re­quir­ing cataract surg­eries with­in the pub­lic health­care sys­tem—es­sen­tial­ly re­duc­ing wait­ing times for pro­ce­dures and en­abling pa­tients to re­ceive time­ly and ef­fi­cient treat­ment, in or­der to re­gain their vi­sion and have them re­turn to their reg­u­lar day-to-day lives, as quick­ly as pos­si­ble,” the re­lease said.

A member of the surgical team applies eye drops to a patient, in preparation for surgery. [Image courtesy NCRHA]

Ac­cord­ing to the NCRHA, the push to cut short pa­tient wait­ing times is part of the Min­istry of Health’s broad­er ef­forts to im­prove ac­cess to crit­i­cal health­care ser­vices, par­tic­u­lar­ly with in­creas­ing de­mands among the Trinidad and To­ba­go pop­u­la­tion.

“Re­search in­di­cates that cataract-re­lat­ed vi­sion loss is one of the lead­ing caus­es of blind­ness in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” the Au­thor­i­ty ex­plains.

“The NCRHA’s ini­tia­tive is part of an on­go­ing ef­fort to en­sure greater ac­ces­si­bil­i­ty and avail­abil­i­ty for cit­i­zens, as it re­lates to es­sen­tial surg­eries they need for im­proved qual­i­ty of life.”

NCRHA CEO, Davlin Thomas, has com­mend­ed the ef­forts of staff in­volved on the project.

“The com­ple­tion of 300 cataract surg­eries in such a short pe­ri­od demon­strates the com­mit­ment and ded­i­ca­tion of our health­care teams to im­prov­ing the lives of those in our care,” he stat­ed. “This is a spe­cial ini­tia­tive, and I wish to ex­tend thanks to Dr She­henaz Mo­hammed who has spear­head­ed this project—see­ing, on av­er­age, 100 per­sons per month … work­ing over the week­ends. Ku­dos to her and the team.”

“We are proud of the progress we’ve made in de­liv­er­ing qual­i­ty ser­vice and we are con­fi­dent that this ini­tia­tive will con­tin­ue to pro­vide bet­ter ac­cess to vi­sion-sav­ing surgery for more pa­tients in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said. “Thank you to our NCRHA staff for their labour of love and sac­ri­fice in ser­vice.”

Two members of the surgical team suit up, in preparation for surgery. [Image courtesy NCRHA]

Thomas stat­ed that in or­der to en­sure ef­fi­cien­cy and bet­ter ser­vice de­liv­ery, the NCRHA had im­ple­ment­ed strate­gic mea­sures such as ex­tend­ed op­er­at­ing hours, surgery on Sun­days, ded­i­cat­ed sur­gi­cal teams, and stream­lined pa­tient man­age­ment process­es. This par­tic­u­lar project fol­lows on from the NCRHA’s Surgery Sun­days ini­tia­tive, which com­menced in 2017, orig­i­nal­ly at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex.

“We are de­ter­mined to con­tin­u­ous­ly strength­en and ex­pand our ca­pac­i­ty to con­sis­tent­ly de­liv­er spe­cial­ized care to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.” Thomas added.

Med­ical Chief of Staff, Dr Ravi Lal­la, not­ed the ini­tia­tive was a tremen­dous suc­cess, and not on­ly in al­le­vi­at­ing the pres­sure on wait­ing lists.

“By fo­cus­ing on cataract surg­eries sole­ly,” he said, “the NCRHA has been able to pri­or­i­tize those pa­tients who have been wait­ing the longest, while main­tain­ing high stan­dards of care.”

He added: “We will con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor the progress of the ini­tia­tive and look for ad­di­tion­al ways to op­ti­mize our ser­vices for the ben­e­fit of all our pa­tients.”

The NCRHA says it in­tends to build on the suc­cess of this surg­eries’ ini­tia­tive to en­sure im­prove­ments with­in the pub­lic health­care sys­tem. 

It says plans are in place for fur­ther ex­pan­sion of ser­vices in the com­ing months, to ad­dress oth­er key pa­tient care ar­eas.