The Minister of Health and Wellness, Dr Kailesh Kumar Singh Jagutpal, effected a site visit, this morning, at the New Souillac Hospital, in Souillac, to meet the Professor of Ophtalmology, CHU de Poitiers, France, Professor Nicolas Leveziel.
Professor Leveziel is currently on a two-week mission in Mauritius to perform Vitroretinal Surgeries in Mauritius. The professor is a specialist in retinal surgery, and, to date, has examined some 130 patients from Mauritius and four patients from Rodrigues having severe retinal pathologies.
Thirty-two patients have already undergone surgery by the Professor assisted by the team of Ophthalmologists of the New Souillac Hospital. Some fifteen other patients have also benefited from injections to treat certain retinal pathologies under his supervision.
In a statement, Dr Jagutpal recalled that Professor Leveziel is in Mauritius since a week now, performing complex eye surgeries at the New Souillac Hospital. This is his seventh visit to Mauritius resulting from the collaboration between the Ministry of Health and Wellness, the Teaching Eye Surgery (T.E.S) Foundation, and the Professor, the Minister pointed out.
Minister Jagutpal emphasised that, in addition, to cater for surgeries locally, the Professor is also training the Ophthalmologists of the New Souillac Hospital so that they acquire more knowledge in order to practice these types of high-quality surgeries themselves in the future. This is in line with Government’s policy to cater for more surgeries locally rather than sending patients abroad for the same surgeries, he stated.
Speaking about the Subramania Bharathi Moka Eye Hospital, the Minister indicated that the Hospital has been built since quite a long time and the infrastructure is becoming quite outdated. He highlighted that the construction of a new high-tech Eye Hospital in Moka itself is in the pipeline.
On this score, the Health Minister stressed that in the meantime, the New Souillac Hospital has opened this Ophthalmology Section that is operational 24/7 so as to allow the treatment of the population in the south region as well as to reduce patient overload, in particular those who were included on the waiting list due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Professor Leveziel, for his part, highlighted that Mauritius has a highly prevalent diabetic population which, according to statistics, is the first cause of blindness and mortality on the island.
On this score, he indicated that the surgery of the retina comes at a late stage of the evolution of diabetes but, the ideal way to combat this would be the presence of a collaborative medical approach to diabetes requiring either laser or more complex surgical treatment in order to prevent the evolution of retinal complications related to diabetes.
These interventions, the Professor underlined, are a collaboration between the general practitioners who screen for diabetes, and the ophthalmologists who then screen for retinitis and treat it accordingly.
In addition, he stressed that even if the Ophthalmologists throughout the island are well equipped to screen for diabetic retinitis, the wave of diabetes which affects almost 20% of the population often causes the island’s Ophthalmologists to be overwhelmed.
Credits: GIS Mauritius 3August 2022
