Cataract surgery is the top surgery request received by the US Naval Ship Comfort team, who are in Trinidad providing free medical services to members of the public. Hundreds turned out to NAPA today on day one of the mission, which Health Minister Lackram Bodoe believes will redound to the benefit of T&T's public health system. Rynessa Cutting has more.
00:00Roughly 100 Trinidad and Tobago nationals who had been on various elective surgery lists in the public health care system are expected to have their surgeries done on board the USNS Comfort after being referred by the various RHAs.
00:15This is going to impact in terms of cutting our waiting list for surgeries and of course cutting our waiting list for consultations. What is important to note here this morning is that out of these consultations in the clinics, referrals can be added to our public health system. So it means that the patients who are seen this morning will be followed up in the public health system.
00:38As you know the ship leaves on Sunday there, three days and we're really hoping that our patients, our citizens of Trinidad and Tobago will be greatly assisted.
00:48The health minister says cataract surgeries were the highest in demand.
00:52Cataract and eye procedures would be top of the list. General surgery would perhaps be second and some pediatric procedures would be taken on the list.
01:02So as you can see this fits right into what we need in terms of cutting waiting lists.
01:08When I came in as minister, I would have asked for the waiting list for the past three years. So interestingly, we would have had patients waiting as long as three years, you know, for surgeries.
01:20The USNS Comfort will be in Trinidad until August 9th, offering free walk-in medical services to members of the public at the National Academy for the Performing Arts, Napa in Port of Spain.
01:33We have four specialties. So we have adult care, pediatrics, we have dentistry and optometry and we're going to spend the next couple of days until Sunday delivering medical care here and then we're conducting surgical operations on board USNS Comfort.
01:48So we expect to see somewhere between 1,600 and 2,000 people while we're here in Trinidad and we are conducting, you know, somewhere between 12 and 15 surgeries per day while we're here.
02:01So that we don't have numbers yet because we just started, but I can tell you that this is our sixth stop and our final stop before we head back to Norfolk, Virginia.
02:10And we are going to do everything we can to leave a lasting and great impression for the people here in Trinidad and Tobago.
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