|
CUBA
NEWS
The
Miami Herald
U.S.-based flying clinic ends eye visit
to Cuba
A flying team of eye
surgeons ends its fifth trip to Cuba, leaving
behind -- as it does elsewhere -- medical
expertise for host doctors and patients
treated free of charge.
By Larry Luxner, Special
to The Herald. Posted on Sat, Apr. 03, 2004
HAVANA - Eleven-year-old Giselle Pérez
Elias lay in her hospital bed, doodling
on an electronic sketch pad as she awaited
cataract surgery on her right eye. Down
the hall, doctors were operating on a 7-year-old
girl, their powerful microscopes linked
to video cameras broadcasting the surgery
to 150 eye specialists in a nearby classroom.
A normal day for any eye hospital -- except
that the procedures were taking place inside
a U.S.-based white jet parked at Havana's
international airport.
The DC-10 ''flying eye hospital'' is owned
and operated by Orbis International, a New
York-based nonprofit group that seeks to
eradicate preventable blindness worldwide
by 2020.
RANGE OF MALADIES
Orbis and its 42-member team of physicians
recently wrapped up a four-week program
in Havana and eastern Manzanillo, treating
patients for everything from cataracts to
glaucoma. Surgeries took place on the plane
and at nearby hospitals, in an effort coordinated
with Cuba's Ministry of Public Health.
Brooke Johnson, Orbis' communications manager,
said the trip marked the fifth year Orbis
has visited Cuba since 1991, averaging four
specialized procedures a day on the DC-10
and three to five in land-based hospitals.
''The whole point of Orbis is not to come
in and do 500 cataract surgeries in three
days,'' she said. "We do quality surgeries
to teach new techniques or affirm techniques
that are currently being used. In Cuba,
the problem is access to international experts.''
That's why Orbis has some of the world's
leading ophthalmologists and eye surgeons
on its staff, including volunteers from
Argentina, Canada, Israel, Great Britain
and the United States. Since its founding
in 1982, Orbis estimates it has trained
more than 63,000 medical professionals through
programs in 72 countries aboard the DC-10
and in hospital-based programs in 82 countries.
Carlos Solarte, the DC-10's Colombian-born
chief ophthalmologist, said the organization
first came to Cuba at the invitation of
the island's quasi-governmental Ophthalmic
Society. He said Cuba has about 40,000 cases
of blindness that could have been prevented.
Orbis' DC-10, the only airborne medical
facility of its kind, has a complete operating
room, recovery room, technical training
center, and a 48-seat classroom equipped
with an audiovisual system.
Cuban President Fidel Castro and former
President Bush have visited the aircraft
on separate occasions, though Orbis tries
to avoid becoming entangled in political
or religious controversies.
But when it comes to Cuba, it's hard for
Orbis completely to avoid controversy.
Marcelino Río Torres, director of
Havana's Ramón Pando Ferrer Ophthalmological
Hospital, alleged that when Orbis first
proposed coming to Cuba in 1991, the U.S.
State Department held up its permit for
several months.
He also alleged that Miami's Bascom Palmer
Eye Institute agreed in 1995 to host three
Cuban doctors for 15-day training sessions,
but Cuban exiles ''threatened to put a bomb
in the hospital'' and the agreement was
canceled. Bascom Palmer spokeswoman Cynthia
Birch said her staff had no recollection
of any such bomb threats.
More recently, Cuban government officials
and the public have welcomed the return
trips.
''With Orbis, we have the opportunity to
have a scientific exchange with the United
States,'' said Río Torres, whose
Havana hospital employs 60 ophthalmologists
and sees about 1,000 patients a day. "The
objective is not to operate on patients,
but to pass along training and to demonstrate
the latest techniques.''
CHOOSING THE CASES
Solarte said Orbis decides which specific
cases it will handle on the basis of the
topics and techniques that doctors in the
host country want to learn.
''In Manzanillo, they wanted to learn more
about adult cataracts, so we did two full
weeks of surgery for cataracts, glaucoma
and eyelid disorders,'' he said.
During the Havana surgeries, several dozen
doctors in the plane's coach section watched
the procedures on a large-screen TV. In
a waiting room in the airport terminal,
many more watched a video hookup. Orbis
doctors speaking in English and Spanish
narrated the procedures, pausing frequently
to take questions from the audience.
|
