Mandeville residents benefit from cataract mission
Published:Tuesday | May 7, 2019 | 12:16 AMTamara Bailey/Gleaner Writer
MANDEVILLE, Manchester:
Persons as young as age five are today reaping the benefits of the Cataract Camp Mission, held at the Mandeville Regional Hospital from April 27 to 29 and made possible through the Mind Body and Soul Health Ministry and doctors Kiran and Pallavi Patel Family Foundation, both based in Tampa, Florida.
A total of 368 people received much-needed cataract surgeries over the three-day period by a 17-member team of surgeons, nurses and healthcare professionals, some from as far as India, led by anaesthesiologist Dr Nitin Shaw.
Vice- president of the Mind Body and Soul Health Ministry, Horace Morgan, said since the organisation’s official start in 2011, they have completed the mission at the hospital every year since 2014.
“My wife and I would always pack barrels and send to Jamaica, but after a while, we thought we needed to be doing something greater. Through a family member, we realised that cataract surgery was a great need here and we started putting our team together. The members of our team are from India, California and Florida and these people, outside of my wife and I, have no ties to Jamaica. They fund their own airfare to the country and they are just giving,” Morgan told The Gleaner.
At the mission’s closing ceremony held on the hospital grounds recently, Morgan revealed that his wife is the backbone of the organisation and goes above and beyond to ensure the projects are done, even when he feels there is nothing more that can be done.
Additionally, with millions of dollars needed each time, the VP commended the main sponsor, Patel Foundation, for its continued partnership, and expressed gratitude to major sponsor Alcan for providing glasses and much of the equipment needed to complete surgeries.
Regional technical director of the Southern Regional Health Authority, Dr Vitillius Holder, said the hospital has been doing cataract surgeries for sometime now, but always had a backlog, which the volunteering team clears.
“The team first did 225 surgeries in 2014, then 237 in 2015, 251 in 2016, and 258 in 2018. This year they have done 368. The team has helped us [relieve] this backlog and help these people improve their way of life so they can support their families” he said.
Dr Holder said that for the three days, approximately J$57 million worth of surgeries was done, bringing the total, over the past five years, to well over J$200 million.
Dr Gavin Henry, consultant ophthalmologist, said it took a lot of planning and hard work to get the camp running successfully, but everyone made it work.
“We had a team of seven doctors and approximately 10 nurses who helped to make the process smoother. We have to commend the enthusiasm of the team, despite the long hours. Nurses would be here from as early as 7 a.m. and the full team would be working way up to the nights. We have patients who come back enthusiastically to do their second eye and wanting to know when the team will be back” Dr Henry said.
In addition to the work the organisation and foundation have been doing at the hospital, they have also given back hundreds of millions to healthcare in St Ann, renovating facilities and providing prostheses for amputees.