Cataract surgery marathon committed to operate on 500 patients

The Free State Department of Health has committed to operate on about 500 patients for Cataract Surgeries for the period of 1 October up to 1 November. It is expected that 30 surgeries will be done per day. These surgeries are performed from Monday to Thursday with Friday reserved for management of individual cases and other administrative procedures that prepare the clinical spaces for the next intake.

The marathon has been running relatively well up to now except that extraordinary measures are being put in place to ensure that the marathon remains on target despite the disruptions caused by the changing health conditions of patients.

As from Tuesday, 1 October  up to today, the marathon has restored sight to 156 people whose lives were stagnant because of the effects of cataract.

Despite the challenges of high blood pressure, hypertension and diabetes on the part of the patients, the Department is committed to do as many surgeries as possible in a day. It is clinically unsafe to perform cataract surgery on a patient with high blood pressure and uncontrollable effects of hypertension and diabetes. So, even if the patient has come the surgery will not be performed and that impacts on the bold and ambitious targets of the marathon.

The planning team has now considered increasing the numbers that are booked in one day to ensure that even though they may not operate everyone who is overbooked, they must also not fall too far off from their scheduled daily targets.

The Free State MEC for Health, Mr. Monyatso Mahlatsi has visited the National District Hospital site where these surgeries are performed by highly specialised Teams of Ophthalmologists and Ophthalmic Nurses from Universitas Academic Hospital. Mahlatsi appreciated the dedication of staff who are going beyond the call of duty to ensure that the long waiting list which goes up to 2026 is drastically brought down and many people’s sight is restored.

These long waiting lists are a national concern as many people lose their sight and require cataract surgeries to be done on them.