More Uruguayans recover visual health with Cuban support
Aug (Prensa Latina) In September, Uruguay’s José Martí Eye Hospital will have more than 90,000 surgeries, 60,000 of them cataracts, said the center’s director, Sandra Medina, quoted today by La República newspaper.
This facility was born in 2007, in the context of Operación Milagro (“Operation Miracle”), as a cataract surgery center, although over the years it has incorporated diagnostic study equipment and advanced surgical treatments, she explained.
Since then, the Cuban and Uruguayan specialists have consulted 700,000 patients at the hospital, and another 15,000 in the interior of the country, while carrying out nine checks on children in schools through the Visual Health Program.
Out of the 90,000 surgeries, 60,000 were due to cataracts, the first cause of reversible blindness in the country, and the rest were corneal operations (transplants, refractive surgery and cross-linking for the treatment of keratoconus), she said.
The incorporation of advanced technology, financed by the State Health Services Administration, allows all stages of eye care to be treated in this place, from the medical, preventive, surgical to rehabilitation, according to Medina.
On November 27, 2007, the physical space of the Eye Hospital was inaugurated on the grounds of Saint Bois Hospital, in the context of Operation Miracle, an initiative promoted by Cuban and Venezuelan leaders Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez to treat the most dispossessed free of charge and avoid preventable blindness.
On July 24, 2009, on the occasion of the 10,000 cataract operations, the Eye Hospital was named José Martí, in honor of the Cuban independence hero.
(Taken form PL in Spanish)
Written by Radio Grito de Baire
