Pretoria – In an ongoing bid to reduce waiting times for cataract surgeries in Gauteng, various public hospitals have embarked on a cataract marathon campaign for the entire month of October, which restored sight in hundreds of residents.
“This cataract surgery marathon campaign has seen different hospitals perform a large number of operations in an effort to reduce the waiting times for patients,” said Gauteng health spokesperson Kwara Kekena.
A cataract is a cloudiness of the lens of the eye which occurs in many people as they grow older.
“This can also happen in younger people due to diseases. A cataract surgery is performed to remove the lens of the eye, which affects vision. Among the high performing hospitals was Kalafong Tertiary Hospital in Pretoria West, which undertook 205 cataract surgeries in two weeks,” said Kekana.
“The Dr George Mukhari Academic Hospital and St. Johns Eye Hospital performed 132 and 124 operations respectively. In the West Rand, Leratong Hospital performed 105 operations, whereas, in the Joburg health district, the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital undertook 94, and Helen Joseph Hospital performed 64 operations for October.”
Other hospitals in the province will conduct their cataract marathon surgeries this month.
Kekana said the Covid-19 pandemic has considerably affected public hospitals’ ability to perform elective, planned surgeries due to resources being re-purposed to fight the pandemic.
“With the drop in the rate of new Covid-19 infection cases and hospital admissions, public hospitals are able to dedicate resources to other healthcare services,” she said.
Last month, it emerged that the backlog for patients awaiting surgery at the Steve Biko Academic Hospital in Pretoria had ballooned to more than 2 000, with a waiting period of about 10 years for some specialised surgeries.
This was revealed by Gauteng Health MEC Dr Nomathemba Mokgethi in her written reply to questions in the legislature from the DA’s provincial spokesperson on health, Jack Bloom.
Bloom submitted written questions to Mokgethi in the legislature asking her about the backlog at the Pretoria hospital.
In her reply, Mokgethi said the waiting list had 2 110 patients, including 205 who will have to wait between eight and 10 years for maxillofacial surgery.
“The Orthopaedics Department has the most number of patients waiting for surgery – 638 patients who need hip, knee, spinal or feet operations will wait between 18 months to two years. Another problem area is paediatrics, where there are 385 young children on the surgery waiting list,” said Bloom.
Patients needing general surgery and urology surgery wait from eight to 12 months.
IOL