Article on Ocular trauma Conference at Doha in the Peninsula

By Fazeena Saleem

DOHA: Advanced medical expertise and technology is available in Qatar to handle Ocular Trauma, while more attention should be paid to prevent eye injuries among children and construction workers, say experts.

The Ophthalmology Department at the Hamad Medical Cooperation (HMC) is equipped and the surgeons are skilled to meet the dramatic rise in the number of eye injuries suffered by children and young adults in Qatar, said Dr Szilard Kiss, Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology and Director of Clinical Research, Weill Cornell Medical College.

“It is completely equipped; the equipment is as good as we have in New York and some times even better. The surgeons possess top knowledge and the techniques they use are equal to any other place in the world,” he said on the sidelines of the 2nd Qatari Ophthalmology conference.

This three-day conference emphasized to create public awareness on the measures and tools required to prevent eye injuries at construction sites, schools and at the work place.

“It can give hope to patients who had no hope after any eye injury. What, the doctors and audience will take out of this conference is about undergoing a surgery and getting the vision back,” said Dr Kiss, who is also a visiting surgeon at the Ophthalmology Department, HMC.

The conference saw many presentations and lectures from international eye experts from different parts of the world including USA, Europe, Middle East, India and GCC in addition to the local speakers from the HMC. The Ophthalmology conference had dedicated sessions each day, which dealt at length on the various issues related with ocular trauma and how best to prevent it.

“We should aim at prevention from injuries. We have several deceases to tackle. In case if we can prevent injuries the Ophthalmologist can spend more time on other diseases,” said, Dr S. Natrajan, Chairman, Academic research Committee, All India Ophthalmological Society.

“Children should have adult’s supervision; usually parents leave children with maids or at the play schools. Even at play schools if there is an adult supervision injuries could be prevented,” he said.

Sports injuries and work place injuries occur more because of carelessness and not following the proper safety measures.

“For workers the norms should be followed. Where ever there is a risk, the protection measures are important. Many accidents happen when they are lazy for few minutes,” said Dr Natrajan, who is looking for a clinical and expertise exchange programme.

Immediately after an injury the eye will be malformed. This will be addressed on early stage, to reform the shape of the eye. And often the next is rehabilitation carried out at second and third surgery, to maximise the visual potential, says experts.

However, patients in the Middle East mostly don’t do follow up treatment said Dr Farthy Elsayyad, IRCS, Misiri University for Science and Technology, Cairo Egypt. Only less than five percent of the patients take follow up treatment after an eye injury said Dr Fathy, while sating the real statistics of Ocular Trauma in the Middle East is unaware.