More Belizeans access Cuban eye care
The traffic has been so heavy that it could almost be called an air bridge. That’s the route between Belize City and Havana that is paving the way to free eye care for Belizeans. Today another flight turned around at the P.G.I.A. and Jacqueline Woods spoke to those coming and going.
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
This afternoon forty-three more Belizeans departed the country for Cuba where they will undergo surgery to treat various eye problems.
Vildo Marin, Minister of Health
“As a matter of fact, this is a project which is jointly financed between the Cuban government and the Venezuelan government to send as much people from this Caribbean region to Cuba to operate on whatever diseases of the eye that they have.”
The patients, like sixty-eight year old Julia Contreras, are expected to be away for one week, but sometimes the time is extended due to the severity of the medical problem. Contreras, who is a resident of San Joaquin Village in the Corozal District, suffers from the condition known as pterygium, an abnormal growth that affects a person’s ability to see.
Julia Contreras, Eye Patient
“Well it affects me when I try to read, most of the time and then it starts getting watery. So now that I heard about this team of medicals that came to San Joaquin and so I decided to go there and try to see if I can go to Cuba and I was lucky to be one of those that are going today.”
Jacqueline Woods
“Are you feeling a little bit anxious? How are you feeling right now?”
Julia Contreras
“I am feeling nervous yes, but excited too.”
As Contreras waited to board the plane, a number of other Belizeans returned on Aerocaribbean charter flight after undergoing similar treatment. Forty-three year old Jose Luis Baeza, a resident of Orange Walk Town is happy to be back home after he had a cataract successfully removed. Baeza says he had lived with the condition for more than ten years
Jose Luis Baeza, Eye Patient
“I use to get treatment at hospital, but like drops and this and that you know. But when it come to this trip I tek the risk to go, but I never inna my life want ride plane, I ‘fraid fi plane, so I took the ride.”
“I went to fix my eye sight because we know that eye sight is a very serious problem and the eye sight is something that cause money to operate, get an operation. So I get to know more about this trip to Cuba and so I took the trip.”
So far, the patients have been mostly elderly citizens who undergo a pre-screening before they are chosen to go on the trip. So when news was received about the recent death of one of the patients ninety-one year old William Coote, a resident of the Sister Cecilia Home for the Elderly, it affected those involved in the programme. However, as explained by Ulysses Barquin, Cuban Charge d’ Affaires, Coote did not die while undergoing surgery, and his death was due to pre-existing medical problems.
Ulysses Barquin, Charge d’ Affaires, Cuba
“This gentleman was ninety-one years old. He was in very bad clinical condition. We didn?t want to deny him his right to go; he wanted to go, it was his last will. His haemoglobin was very low, only four, he had a blood circulation problem. So when he got there, he got complications. He was not even operated, he was taken directly to intensive care unit and then he had an internal blast of one of the veins, one of the arteries.”
“It is difficult if we do not segregate people by race, by religion, by political tainting, then how come you can come and say to somebody, you cannot go because you are old, you cannot go because you are in very bad physical condition. We leave it up to the doctors and the doctors are the one who say from now on if they can travel. So we know they are not in a critical condition, we allow them to go.”
According to Barquin, the programme has been going very well and in addition to eye surgery, some patients had other serious medical problems addressed.
Ulysses Barquin
“There is a Belizean lady who detected breast cancer and she was operated on very successfully and she is recovering now. I learned that there were two other patients with heart failure; they put a bypass, now they are also recovering. And there was another patient with a leg prosthesis and they put a new prosthesis there in the leg. Some other complications with pneumonia, we had a couple of them with pneumonia also and they are being treated there.”
The medical programme will remain in effect as long as there are patients in need of the service.
Vildo Marin
Right now the plane is leaving directly from Belize to Cuba on Thursdays and returning on Tuesdays because we do have the amount of people to send over. Of course we have the B.C.V.I. which is helping us to coordinate it here on the ground in Belize.”
Today’s trip was the sixth flight since the programme started earlier this year. Jacqueline Woods for News Five.
