Mater Dei’s Ophthalmology Department is planning to carry out 3,000 cataract operations a year, which should reduce the maximum waiting time for all patients to one year and less by the end of 2012.
The department’s chairman Thomas Fenech said one year was a “reasonable” waiting time for “routine” cataract operations, meaning they were still at the “nuisance” stage, as opposed to the more urgent cases, which even now would be fast-tracked.
The department has already made significant progress by using two theatres, as opposed to one. It has increased the number of consultants to six and plans to extend operating times into the late afternoon on a daily basis to reach its goal.
Until now, afternoon surgery was only carried out once a week but thanks to the cooperation of the nursing department, cataract operations will be performed from Monday to Friday, increasing by seven a day.
More than 130 cataract operations have even been farmed out to Saint James Hospital in Sliema over the past two months.
The number of eye operations doubled from 2007 to last year, from 2,000 to 4,000, with the number of cataract procedures alone increasing by 116 per cent from 2006 to 2010. The most significant growth was observed between 2008 and 2010 – during the hospital migration – when procedures soared by 98 per cent.
There is a distinction between cataract operations under local anaesthetic – which represent some 85 per cent of the total – and general, which some patients insist on. The waiting time for procedures under local anaesthetic, Mr Fenech explained, decreased to two years, while that for general remained three to four years – primarily on account of the need for anaesthetists and beds, which are in short supply.
“For many years,” Mr Fenech said, “we have had to put on the waiting list more patients than we could actually treat. But we are now turning the page”.
Speaking at a visit to the Ophthalmology Department yesterday, Health Minister Joe Cassar said its workload would increase by time due to an ageing population and, therefore, more eye complications.
He urged more young doctors to specialise in the field, pointing out that they could now follow courses in Malta, and raising awareness of the “breadth of the many other serious problems” the department handled, over and above cataracts. Dr Cassar said Mater Dei had the dual function of both a general and specialist hospital, to avoid patients travelling for treatment. A “sophisticated and state-of-the-art” vitrectomy machine, which is not found in many hospitals in the West, and mostly in specialised centres, has just been installed at the Ophthalmology Department. The machine is used for retina problems, and the seven operations carried out in the last week were already showing its good results, the team of consultants said.
The “fantastic” machine, which cost €140,000, uses key-hole surgery, with smaller incisions and a faster rate of cutting, allowing for operations to be 30 minutes shorter, recovery time speedier and the intervention safer, while doing away with stitches.
Mr Fenech and his colleagues said the machine went “beyond their expectations”, while Italian vitreoretinal surgeon William Gualtieri said he could not work anywhere else after using it at Mater Dei.
Since the eye bank was set up in 2005, the 50 patients waiting for a cornea transplant have dwindled to three – and these were still on the list because they were yet not convinced about undergoing the operation.