New accord to boost quality of eye care in Seychelles |11 April 2017

The quality of service in ophthalmology in Seychelles is set to improve following the signing of a

memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the Ministry of Health and the Teaching Eye Surgery Foundation (TES).

The MoU was signed yesterday at the Ministry of Health’s headquarters, Mont Fleuri between Health Minister Jean-Paul Adam and Professor Cyrus Tabatay, President of TES in the presence of high officials of both the ministry and of the Health Care Agency.

The MoU makes provision for a partnership to strengthen the quality of eye treatment in Seychelles through regular visits of high level surgeons from TES. They will be in addition to existing services here and in collaboration with regular eye camps organised with other partners. It also consists of capacity building of Seychellois expertise and attachments at TES in Geneva, Switzerland where it is based, or elsewhere.

TES’ mission is to train local surgeons in state-of-the-art eye surgery and to assist health delivery structures (hospitals, clinics and practices) in acquiring up-to-date ophthalmology equipment and, importantly, to train local practitioners in their use.

“We are very proud that in Seychelles we already have a very good level of service in that area but we are committed to raising that level of service even further. This MoU allows us to do that by first of all increasing the number of surgical procedures that we can provide in Seychelles. This will be done through visiting experts. Professor Tabatay himself will be leading several missions to Seychelles including experts from the field.  We are also as part of this MoU developing the capacity of Seychellois experts.

“So there will be opportunities for Seychellois doctors and professionals to work together with the visiting professors and surgeons to strengthen their capacity. There will also ne opportunities for them to undertake visits to partners of the foundation for them to further strengthen their capacity,” said Minister Adam.

This MoU also allows us to go into a very innovative project with the Teaching Eye Surgery Foundation to enhance our ability to detect diabetes within our population. We know that diabetes is one of the leading medical challenges we face in the country. It will allow us to do enhanced screening for persons in our population who are at risk and therefore offer treatment at an earlier time,” he said.

TES has been functioning for twelve years in Mauritius and Minister Adam said Seychelles is building on that. And with the partnership of our local professionals he believes we can do something even more innovative.

He added that the ministry has already identified young professionals to go for specialisation and can later on join the service.

Professor Tabatay expressed his appreciation of being able to work in a new location in the region after having worked for twelve years in Mauritius to improve the techniques of eye surgery.

“With the help of Minister Adam we will open a new theatre, updated to the highest level and at the standard at home in Switzerland. We are going to do that thanks to the collaboration of the Ministry of Health. The exciting part is we start a national screening eye disease for diabetes programme,” he said, while emphasising on diabetes itself, which he described as the most dangerous disease on Earth according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

TES will take pictures of the retina to detect diabetes, then select patients according to their needs.

He remarked this is a very ambitious programme and as Seychelles is a small country in the big ocean, he said it is possible as there will be a limited number of people they will have to screen.

The foundation is offering its services while the Ministry of Heath is footing local costs. Local treatment for diabetes is already available here and the ministry just needs to upgrade its services. In order to achieve this target and to get people to come forward, Minister Adam said the ministry will go in districts to sensitise the population. In 2015, 600 cases were dealt with while last year 400 received treatment.