Eye Care Partnerships
Ministry of Health & Environment, Antigua & Barbuda
Since 2019, TEH has been providing surgical services to the people of Antigua and Barbuda at their local hospital. This partnership with the Ministry of Health & The Environment, Antigua and Barbuda is commendable as it underscores the importance of the collaborative approach required to reduce avoidable blindness in the Caribbean Region in a systematic and sustainable way.
Many families are often forced to outsource their eyecare and incur additional expenses to travel to Trinidad to get the surgery that they need. Through this partnership, the doctors and a medical team from TEH travel to Antigua to perform surgeries, thus saving families the additional expense of travelling to Trinidad.
More than 650 surgeries have been done so far and during each visit, education sessions are held for ophthalmic professionals and other medical practitioners teaching them strategies to care for common eye problems.
St. Lucia Eye Hospital, St. Lucia
In July 2021, ophthalmologist Dr. Dharmendra Shah from St. Lucia, signed a partnership with TEH to perform cataract surgeries for his patients in St. Lucia.
The first surgery trip was done in November 2022. Performing surgery in St. Lucia for the first time was another unknown, however, it was an exciting new opportunity to help more people in need, to see again.
More than 60 surgeries have been done to da date and plans for more visits with the addition of retina surgery are ongoing.
Eye care providers like Dr. Shah are embracing the opportunity to collaborate and form strategic partnerships to provide cataract surgery services in an unconventional way. In this post-pandemic era, with extraordinarily high waiting lists for cataract surgery, the benefits of collaboration have increased and TEH understands the importance of participating in the solution.
HMS, Eye Centre, Dominica
On November 2022, together with one of Dominica’s leading Consultant Ophthalmologists Dr. Hazel Shillingford-Ricketts, TEH embarked on a partnership to provide surgical services to persons in Dominica. This service enables citizens to access high quality eye surgery without the need to travel outside of Dominica. Surgery trips began in 2023, with over 125 surgeries done thus far. This partnership, unlike most of the other regional partnerships, requires the TEH travelling surgery team to travel with a state-of-the-art portable machine which allows the surgeon to perform the surgeries. This revolutionary portable machine creates many opportunities for smaller Caribbean nations to access the eye care they need.
Trinidad Eye Hospital has signed an Institutional Partnership agreement with the Diabetes Association of Trinidad and Tobago (DATT). DATT is the national non-profit association supporting persons living with diabetes in Trinidad and Tobago. Their focus is to prevent or delay the onset of disease for those at risk through Education, Research and Advocacy. Through this arrangement, persons living with diabetes can also access FREE Comprehensive Eye Screening at Trinidad Eye Hospital.
Trinidad Eye Hospital is pleased to partner with the Eye Correction Centre, UK. Though this partnership, patients have rapid access to high quality multidisciplinary specialist input in many specialist areas including the Eye Correction Centre's specialty: state-of-the-art Refractive Surgery.
Trinidad Eye Hospital is pleased to partner with the John A. Moran Eye Center located on the campus of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. As a “Partner in Service” the Moran Eye Center will assist the TEH in providing multi-specialty training for local doctors, equipment, software, ideas for improving systems and processes, training for staff, ophthalmology residency and fellowship training, opportunities for research, and local and international humanitarian outreach support.
Trinidad Eye Hospital expresses its sincere gratitude to the Aravind Eye Care System (AECS) for its consistent support and guidance. Aravind guided our thinking in our early years and continues to mentor us as we grow and move forward. We are fortunate to have Aravind as a mentor organization providing inspiration, education, sharing best practices and helping us in our journey to provide high quality, affordable eyecare for all people.