Princess Margaret Hospital to get Eye Equipment

A Tonometer, a piece of eye equipment used in the diagnosis of glaucoma, is to be handed over to the eye clinic at the Princess Margaret Hospital in St. Thomas.
The equipment has been donated by two Canadian optometrists, Dr. Victor Obasuyi and Dr. Modupe Oladeji in Toronto, Canada, and handed over to the Canadian Friends of St. Thomas Healthcare. Accepting the equipment on behalf of the Government of Jamaica was Dale Jones, Consul at the Jamaican Consulate in Toronto.
Dr. Obasuyi explained that the Tonometer measured the pressure in the patient’s eye, noting that a rising pressure was usually the first indication of the presence of glaucoma.
“When a patient has glaucoma, the pressure in the eyes builds up and starts to damage the nerves. Glaucoma affects a large number of blacks and that’s why we have donated this instrument to the group,” he said.
Many Jamaicans are stricken with glaucoma each year, a disease which slowly damages the optic nerve without warning and often without symptoms, leading to gradual loss of vision and total blindness, over time. Loss of vision from glaucoma is irreversible.
The Canadian Friends of St. Thomas Healthcare is celebrating 21 years of assisting the residents of St. Thomas, by sponsoring medical visits of Canadian eye-care specialists and furnishing the eye clinic at the Princess Margaret Hospital.
Made up of former residents of the parish of St. Thomas, who are now living in Toronto, the organization will be taking another medical team to Jamaica in July of this year, which will be led by Jamaican-born optometrist, Dr. Carolyn Jarrett and include Dr. Obasuyi.