A team of ophthalmologists visiting from China has performed 40 cataract surgeries on patients of the Georgetown Public Hospi-tal (GPH) Eye Clinic and is expected to have operated on more than 100 patients by the end of a three-day stint in Guyana.
Forty cataract patients of the GPH’s Eye Clinic underwent a 10 to 15 minutes surgery, to remove the cataract from their eyes yesterday.
According to Kunti Bacchus, Nurse-in-Charge of the GPH Eye Clinic, in addition to the 40 cataract surgeries already completed, today 30 operations will be done along with two retinal surgeries. On Friday, 40 more cataract surgeries will be conducted before the doctors depart.
Some of the recovering patients will be visited by Minister of Health and Family Planning Commis-sion of the People’s Republic of China Li Bin when she and four government officials arrive in Guyana for a three-day visit this weekend.
Bacchus, who said that local doctors are working along with the visiting team, explained that the visit provided an opportunity for patients on the clinic’s waiting list for surgery to have it done earlier than scheduled.
Patient education is also being conducted to ensure that patients and their relatives know how to care for their recovering eye, since they are released immediately following the operation. That patient education, Bacchus added, is done daily at the Eye Clinic.
Meanwhile, the Minis-try of Health has announc-ed that the Chinese Minister of Health and Family Planning Commis-sion will be in Guyana for the first time from Septem-ber 27 until September 29.
She is due to meet Prime Minister Samuel Hinds and to hold talks with Minister of Health Dr Bheri Ramsaran on strengthening cooperation between their ministries. After the talks, a Memorandum of Under-standing is expected to be signed to formalise the outcome of their discussion.
The release stated that Li Bin and her delegation of four Chinese government officials will also be visiting the Georgetown Public Hospital and the Linden Hospital Complex (LHC). Bin will also meet the 14 members of the 11th Chinese Medical Brigade (CMB), which has been in Guyana since June.
The release further mentioned that Bin will visit patients who benefited from the activities of the 11th CMB. These include patients fully recovered from the complex ophthalmic and laparoscopic surgical operations at the GPH and the Linden Hospital Complex.
Bin is also expected to symbolically remove the dressing from several patients successfully recovering from recent eye surgery from the GPH and LHC.
Additionally, Bin will inaugurate the Centre for Laparoscopic Surgery at the LHC, for which the CMB has donated costly laparoscopic instruments and equipment.
Bin, the release said, has a PhD in Economics and was Governor of Anhui Providence in February of 2012. In March 2013, the release added, she became the Minister and Party Secretary of the National Health and Family Planning Commission of the People’s Republic of China.
