6,000 waiting for cataract operation

A staggering number of patients - 6,000 - are waiting for a cataract operation, with the waiting list increasing by 400 in seven months.

Last July, the waiting list stood at 5,544 patients according to figures released in Parliament last year. But this number jumped to 5,951 by the end of last month.

The 20-minute operation includes removing the clouded lens of the eye through a micro incision and replacing it with an artificial implant.

Among the patients waiting for the sight-saving surgery is a 70-year-old woman who has been on the waiting list for about three years and has already gone blind from one eye because of the delay. She now risks going blind from the other eye.

In a letter to The Times last May, a relative, Theodore Sammut, complained that she would have to wait another four years because specialists were still operating on patients on the 2003 list.

Contacted yesterday, Mr Sammut said the woman was still waiting, even though doctors recognised that her case was serious. He said she had been told she would be fast-tracked to try and restore her sight.

"She thought about doing the operation in a private clinic but some tests still need to be carried out at Mater Dei Hospital, so patients have to wait," he said.

Last year, Ophthalmic Department head Thomas Fenech said 1,400 cataracts are extracted every year. But the "tremendous increase" in volume was not accompanied by an increase in man power, with the same number of specialists having to take care of more than double the patients.

"More patients, more procedures, more interventions, more successes and the same number of doctors and the same theatre time," he had said in a letter that appeared last June.

A total of 2,600 ophthalmic operations were carried out last year.

The Health Parliamentary Secretariat said ophthalmic operations were done even on weekends with the aim of providing the best possible service.

Alas, what was supposed to be a 70-bed Day Care Unit was turned into another ward and patients undergoing ophthalmic day surgery have to wait in a television room adjacent to the pantry, which has been converted into a waiting area.