Patients worried as Cuban eye doctors prepare to exit

Scores of patients gathered outside the eye clinic at St Joseph's Hospital on Monday morning, waiting not only for appointments or procedures, but also holding on to hope that Cuban doctors would be the ones performing their operations.

Many expressed uncertainty and concern following reports that 277 Cuban medical professionals currently serving in Jamaica are expected to return home at the end of their contracts which will not be renewed. Their departure signals the end of a decades-long cooperation programme between Jamaica and Cuba that has helped fill critical gaps in the local healthcare system. A key component of that partnership is the Jamaica-Cuba Eye Care Programme, which was launched in 2010.

Among those waiting outside the clinic was 69-year-old Sharon, who lamented that she will miss the doctors.

"Dem nice, you see. Oh God man, I hope they get to work on my eyes before dem go back home," she said. Since its resumption in August 2023, nearly 4,000 eye surgeries had been completed under the programme up to October 2024.

"Who is going to take their place and do what dem do for us?" Sharon questioned. She told THE STAR that she has been trying to remove a cataract from her left eye since 2015.

"I know someone who [the doctors] scrape the cataract from them eye and it go good. Me have a hole, they say, in the right eye and the left one want to scrape, so that's why I come here today," she explained.

However, when she arrived at the hospital Monday morning, she said her hopes faded for a second.

"I come and see plenty people this morning when mi come out here did full up. But they start taking papers to register and I got an appointment," she said.

While she has not yet been given a surgery date, Sharon said she remains hopeful that a Cuban doctor will perform her procedure.

"Dem ago give me a phone call. I don't know who going to do it, but I would prefer them to do it because dem work very intelligent and dem work hard, and dem successful," she said. "You can't just send them home, so a private doctor we would have to go and find $300,000; this [programme] helps a lot of people."

John*, who was seated outside the facility waiting for a friend undergoing cataract surgery, expressed concern that Monday was the last day that the Cuban doctors would be operating.

"We have doctors, enuh, and mi naa dis them, but the Cubans level higher," he said.

But, speaking during a virtual press conference on Monday, Minister of Health and Wellness, Dr Christopher Tufton, said "The process will continue by the Cuban team up the 20th of March, there is an agreement on that."

Tufton explained that for the remainder of the programme, operations will be limited to surgeries already scheduled and retina related post operative treatment and monitoring," he said. Tufton also noted that approximately 130 to 140 patients are currently awaiting surgery, and assured that those procedures will take place.

John expressed relief that his friend managed to get the surgery but remains worried about other Jamaicans who are still waiting.

"Mi feel good that him get the procedure because a lot of people that come this morning a wonder if them can remove them cataract. So him fortunate," John added.

Tufton said the Government is working to ensure continuity of the screening programme "through a combination of our internal capacity as well as some outsourcing arrangements that we got Cabinet agreement on that".

"We understand, [and] fully appreciate the benefits of the eye care programme at St Joseph's. We know many Jamaicans have benefited from this and it has been driven primarily by this agreement involving Cuban workers. The intention is not to discontinue the programme, the intention is to work with the existing team up until the point when they may discontinue or continue depending on where the discussions lead and beyond that to find alternative ways," he said.

"There is an offer for those who wish to remain under a different agreement, so depending on what happens over that period of time then we will determine how our plans spans out...What we are committed to as a government is to continue the eye care programme at St Joseph's, whether it is administered by Cubans, Guyanese, diaspora, Filipinos or Jamaicans," he added.