Louis Grant Medical Centre has made significant progress towards establishing a cataract surgical centre with more than $3 million already raised, but this falls short of the $25 million needed to make surgeries more accessible and affordable to vulnerable Jamaicans.

General Manager Patricia Sinclair-McCalla has issued an appeal for donations to have the cataract centre up and running within the next six months.

With 30 patients currently awaiting the surgery, the non-profit organisation has to pay to rent surgical spaces for its team to operate to meet the demand.

“We want to retrofit a room, or two rooms, in the clinic as it is now to become a cataract theatre where our patients can actually have their cataract surgery done. As of now…we have to send them to an external location, and the cost is much, much more, so it would be much more reasonable, and the fee would be considerably reduced, if we had our own cataract theatre,” said Sinclair-McCalla.

She added that there are an additional 100 patients who are interested, but they could not be scheduled because of the lack of resources.

“We have had some internal changes ourselves in terms of getting an additional ophthalmologist on board, so that delayed even the external surgeries that were being done before. Now that we have that ophthalmologist on board, we expect that we should be able to clear the backlog… We would want to be in a position to say, ‘Okay, we can schedule your surgery in another X number of months’,” Sinclair-McCalla told the Jamaica Observer.

Established in 1985 by the late Professor Louis Grant — a renowned social activist and professor emeritus of The University of the West Indies (UWI) — the centre, which was formerly the Foundation for International Self Help (FISH) Clinic, provides low and subsidised health care with an emphasis on eye, dental, and general medical services.

Located in Papine, St Andrew, the centre serves patients from the Corporate Area, St Thomas, and St Catherine.

Director of the facility and daughter of the late professor, Bette Grant-Otunla, shared that the organisation raised $3 million during a fund-raising gala in celebration of its 40th anniversary serving vulnerable communities.

Grant-Otunla said a GoFundMe account created by the organisation also helped to raise some of the needed money.

While the centre met its target of $3 million during the gala, Grant-Otunla said this can cover only the initial stages of the project.

“They have very specific demands for that kind of operation. We got some help from the Ministry of Health, [which] told us what the requirements were in terms of the structure of the room with the air conditioning and the tiles on the walls, because it has to be a sterile environment.

“We understand what it is we need to do, and everything is quite expensive. I suspect we’re going to be talking about maybe $20 to $25 million, so, of course, we are welcoming donations,” Grant-Otunla told the Observer.

She said the hope is to have the centre fully operational as soon as possible so that people can receive their surgery at the facility.

“I don’t know if that’s going to be possible, but we have to try our best… We have a very long waiting list of patients to look at for that surgery,” she explained.

In addition to the cataract centre, the organisation is also seeking to purchase a lens cutting machine that will reduce the cost of glasses by 40 per cent and reduce the current two-week wait time for people to get their glasses.

Sinclair-McCalla shared that a grant application was made to cover the cost, and the non-profit organisation is hopeful of its success.

“When we get that lens cutting machine we’ll be able to provide glasses at a lower cost and much faster rate, so that people who are coming here without their prescription could probably get their glasses in one day, and there is a shorter turnaround time than what it is now.

“As it is now, we outsource our lens cutting. When the patient leaves the eye clinic and then they go into the optical dispensary, we then, with their prescriptions, pass that on to a lens cutting facility. That takes time; a longer turnaround time than if we were able to do it on-site,” the general manager explained.

Over the last year the medical centre has served approximately 15,000 patients, the majority of whom needed some form of eye care.

Sinclair-McCalla noted that most patients who use the centre are elderly. However, with an expansion of its services to include a children’s clinic, a counselling centre that takes referrals from guidance counsellors, and a women’s centre, the demographic has slightly changed to include Jamaicans of all ages.

The facility has 35 paid members of staff, including two ophthalmologists, an optometrist, two medical doctors, three sessional dentists, and a trained pharmacist.

“We think we are playing a very vital role in the health care of Jamaicans, particularly in the eye care department, and so, because we are servicing and serving so many people, we can’t do it alone. In Jamaica, we say, ‘One hand can’t clap,’ so we need help. We are appealing to like-minded Jamaicans to help us in this effort to give high-quality care to as many Jamaicans as we can,” said Grant-Otunla.

Louis Grant Medical Centre was established in 1985 by the late Professor Louis Grant, a renowned social activist and professor emeritus of The University of the West Indies.x

Director of the Louis Grant Medical Centre, Bette Grant-Otunla.