Free glaucoma screenings draw strong response at QEH

Hundreds of Barbadians took advantage of free glaucoma screenings offered by the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) this week, as medical teams joined the global observance of World Glaucoma Week to raise awareness about the sight-threatening disease.

Dr Kendi Griffith, an ophthalmologist from the QEH Ophthalmology Department, told Barbados TODAY: “We were encouraging patients to come out and be checked for glaucoma.”

Dr Kendi Griffith from the QEH Ophthalmology Department. (Photo Credit: Lauryn Escamilla)

At two tables were nurses and doctors from not only the hospital but the eye clinic as well. 

She said: “We were accompanied by nurses and doctors who helped out at the screening booth. And the nurses today that accompanied us were from the eye operating theatre and also from the eye clinic.”

Dr Griffith added: “Glaucoma can affect the nerve at the back of the eye and one of the risk factors for glaucoma is eye pressures. And this is the reason why we are urging persons to come out and have their pressures checked.

“The way glaucoma works is that it is painless and it is permanent… so we are trying to push screening for glaucoma because once the damage that occurs with glaucoma happens, it is irreversible. And so we don’t want that damage to occur.”

The eye pressure check is the initial test for glaucoma, said Dr Griffith, as she urged Barbadians to be screened to make sure that they know their glaucoma risk.

“We had a number of persons come out, and we were able to find some persons with elevated pressures and refer them as needed.

“As it relates to treatment for glaucoma, some things that we can do are initially start them on drops. There’s also laser treatment that can be done initially and that can help to get patients off drops.”

If the drops no longer work, the other option is eye surgery: “The eye surgery is painless, and it’s a procedure that we use to help to decrease the eye pressure. It’s just like what the drops would have been doing. Those are some of the things that we can do in our operating theatre to help the eye pressures to be controlled. 

“We are trying to prevent that and promote screening for it… and save Barbadians’ eyes.”

(LE)