Cataract waiting lists halved, Mater Dei eyes 3,000 operation benchmark

The number of eye-operations conducted since the transfer to Mater Dei from St Luke’s Hospital in 2006 have almost doubled with an increase of 1,271 procedures a year since November 2007.

During a visit made this morning at Mater Dei Hospital, Health Minister Joe Cassar said it was important to recognise the number of various eye operations. "It is not just cataract operations that are conducted at the hospital but we have a team of consultants conducting vitrectomies, corneal transplants and eyelid operations amongst others. We need to understand that there is more being done,” Cassar said.

The chairperson of the Department of Ophthalmology, Thomas Fenech, said that since two wards were made available at Mater Dei and the addition of two more consultants to the team of four eye specialists, the numbers on waiting lists have drastically been reduced.

Fenech said the cataract operation waiting list has decreased during the last six months due to patients opting, where possible, to have the operation done under local anaesthetic rather than general. “This means that beds are available more often so we can conduct more procedures. We try to convince people to choose to be operated on under local anaesthetic  as this reduces the waiting period on lists since it takes longer if the operation is to be done under general anaesthetic,” Fenech said.

According to statistics a total of 4,595 procedures were conducted between January and August 2011, and 1,543 of these were cataract operations. The department’s goal according to Fenech, is to conduct 3,000 cataract operations in 2012 with the new technology made available to the team.

William Gualtieri, an Italian vitrectomy consultant on the team said: “It is top equipment, state of the art. I cannot think to go somewhere else in the world because the equipment we have here is very fast and safe.”

Joseph Cassar refused to divulge the cost of cataracts devolved to the private hospital sector, citing a private agreement that cannot be disclosed, but said "no extra tax" had been levied to fund the free operations.

Cassar said Malta's ageing population meant complications of the eye were common, but more specialised doctors and nurses in the area were needed to open more operation theatres to attend to the operations and reduce the waiting lists further.

“Training of staff and students is an important factor in all this. The length of time taken by a student to operate would take much longer than a consultant would. This reduces the number of operations conducted in a day,” surgeon Thomas Fenech said.

Cassar said government's aim was to have a public general hospital which can also function as a collection of specialised hospitals. “We forget that we are a small country but a country nonetheless. Bigger countries have hospitals specialising in specific things and all patients are referred to the individual hospitals. We ideally want to keep patients in Malta since it is always better to near family and friends during surgical procedures,” Cassar said.