The Trinidad and To­ba­go Blind Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTB­WA) is urg­ing the Min­istry of Health to in­clude crit­i­cal sight-sav­ing med­ica­tions for glau­co­ma and di­a­bet­ic retinopa­thy on the Chron­ic Dis­ease As­sis­tance Pro­gramme (CDAP) drug list.

The call fol­lows Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe’s re­cent an­nounce­ment that five new med­ica­tions have been added to CDAP for con­di­tions such as heart dis­ease, hy­per­ten­sion, de­pres­sion, and high cho­les­terol, ef­fec­tive Oc­to­ber 1, 2025.

While wel­com­ing the move, the TTB­WA said sim­i­lar at­ten­tion should be giv­en to drugs that can pre­vent avoid­able blind­ness.

The Na­tion­al Eye Sur­vey of Trinidad and To­ba­go (2013–2014) iden­ti­fied glau­co­ma, cataract, and di­a­bet­ic retinopa­thy (DR) as the main caus­es of pre­ventable blind­ness in the coun­try.

How­ev­er, the as­so­ci­a­tion said many pa­tients are un­able to ac­cess es­sen­tial treat­ments con­sis­tent­ly.

In cas­es of glau­co­ma, it said the first-line treat­ment us­ing prostaglandin ana­logue eye drops is of­ten un­avail­able at pub­lic hos­pi­tal phar­ma­cies be­cause of stock-outs, forc­ing pa­tients to pur­chase them pri­vate­ly at high cost.

It said those who can­not af­ford the med­ica­tion face the risk of ir­re­versible blind­ness.

For di­a­bet­ic retinopa­thy, treat­ment in­volves an­ti-VEGF (vas­cu­lar en­dothe­lial growth fac­tor) in­jec­tions ad­min­is­tered di­rect­ly in­to the eye, but these are not avail­able for oph­thalmic use in the pub­lic health sys­tem.

Pri­vate treat­ment is pro­hib­i­tive­ly ex­pen­sive, lead­ing to pre­ventable vi­sion loss among low-in­come pa­tients, said the as­so­ci­a­tion.

The TTB­WA has rec­om­mend­ed that the Health Min­istry add prostaglandin ana­logue eye drops to the CDAP list and make an­ti-VEGF drugs avail­able at pub­lic health in­sti­tu­tions for oph­thalmic use, giv­ing pa­tients eq­ui­table ac­cess to treat­ment.

“Pre­ventable blind­ness has dev­as­tat­ing per­son­al and so­cioe­co­nom­ic im­pacts. By in­clud­ing these med­ica­tions un­der CDAP, we can save sight, pro­tect liveli­hoods, and strength­en our na­tion­al eye health sys­tem,” the as­so­ci­a­tion said.

The TTB­WA, which works close­ly with the Oph­thal­mo­log­i­cal So­ci­ety of Trinidad and To­ba­go (OSTT) and oth­er stake­hold­ers, has writ­ten to Health Min­is­ter Bo­doe re­quest­ing a meet­ing to dis­cuss the im­ple­men­ta­tion of these mea­sures.