Belizeans head to Cuba for free eye surgery

Almost every Belizean has benefited either directly or indirectly from the health care provided in Belize by Cuban doctors stationed here. But a new program is giving Belizeans the opportunity to travel to Cuba for eye surgery that they perhaps could not get done or afford to receive here at home. It’s a joint venture between the Cuban Government and Belize’s Ministry of Health which has tasked the Belize Council for the Visually Impaired with finding likely candidates and getting them ready to go, often within a matter of days. News Five was at the Philip Goldson International Airport this afternoon for the departure of the first eighty-nine patients.

Joan Musa, Director, B.C.V.I.
?Mainly cataract surgery. They are also doing some lid surgery for eyelid abnormalities. Pterygium surgery, which is for the growth over the front of the eye. More or less anything that will respond to surgery, they are willing to do.?

Karla Heusner, Reporting
The programme is part of a computerized approach that allows doctors in three Cuban hospitals to operate on up to ten patients in succession. Belize is one of the first countries to participate in this mass medical mission.

Eugenio Martinez, Cuban Ambassador
?This cooperation programme started first between Venezuela and Cuba. Basically, we are doing surgery in Cuba for cataract and other eye illnesses for free. We provide transportation, accommodation, and surgery for free in Cuba. As for Venezuela, in a year we did surgeries for thirty-eight thousand Venezuelans in Cuba; more than one hundred patients a day. So we have the facilities, the capacity to do it, for the whole Caribbean countries, up to twenty thousand at a time. We started with the Caribbean, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada and Belize.?

And were the patients nervous about going abroad or having a doctor they never met work on their eyes?

Stephen Webster, Resident Sister Cecilia Home
?Well, I am going to Cuba for a cataract, to get cut for a cataract on this left eye.?

Karla Heusner
?Is it something you?ve had for a long time??

Stephen Webster
?Yeah, it?s an old cataract.?

Karla Heusner
?Are you at all nervous about the surgery or going to Cuba??

Stephen Webster
?Well, I am feeling kinda nervous, but I still want to go.? (Laughs)

Karla Heusner
?And how about you Miss Lillian? You feel nervous at all??

Lillian Grant, Resident Sister Cecilia Home
?No, nothing like that.?

Karla Heusner
?You speak Spanish??

Lillian Grant
?Yes, I speak Spanish.?

Karla Heusner
?So you feel comfortable??

Lillian Grant
?Yes, Yes.?

Eugenio Martinez
?This is the first flight from Belize and certainly not the last one. It is one of the most beautiful programme you could have. And we are doing it with love and a great deal of solidarity to Belize. We feel very happy.?

Joan Musa
?We were told about the project at the beginning of last week. The doctors arrived on Tuesday, and then we started setting up clinics in Belize City and Cayo District, in Belmopan in the Cayo District. So it?s all been very, very rushed, but the doctors have managed to identify a good number of patients and they will continue seeing people for the next few weeks.?

The patients leaving today could return in seven days or two weeks depending on the nature of their surgery and recovery time needed. Karla Heusner reporting for News Five.

The B.C.V.I. will be holding clinics to identify candidates for surgery in Cuba over the next few weeks, continuing in the Cayo and Belize districts this week before moving on to the other four districts. Anyone interested in attending the clinics is asked to contact their local branch of the Belize Council for the Visually Impaired for the dates and times.