Escambray ENGLISH EDITION
The exhaustive research shows encouraging results in Sancti Spiritus.
Sancti Spiritus Otoniel Felipe Guardarrama, Neonatology specialist and MSc on Integrated Children Care, is one of three Cuban doctors attending the Third International Workshop on Retinopathy of Prematurity to be held in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, from September 8 to 11.
“In recent years the world has been promoting programs to prevent childhood blindness. In Cuba retinologists and neonatologists training started in 2004 to follow up premature infants in each province”, explains Felipe Guardarrama.
“All babies weighing less than 1700 grams and born before 32 weeks are examined carefully, given the risk they have of developing retinopathy of prematurity, because the embryonic development of the eye is not complete and children risk retinal detachment, a fact that can turn into a total loss of vision”, said the physician.
With a team that includes ophthalmologists and nurses, the exhaustive research shows encouraging results in Sancti Spiritus since treatments began in the territory in 2007.
“Previously we had to move patients to Havana, which brought about complications because we were dealing with infants with special conditions given the early birth, but once implemented the methods in the province, of the 14 children seen only one lacks adequate vision because his critical health condition prevented the move to the capital to receive the treatment required for the specific diagnosis.
“Thanks to the work of the ophthalmologist in charge of carrying the program and the nurses, who tirelessly monitor the evolution of the newborn, there is no chance of escaping a case of retinopathy of prematurity, a fact which helps to ensure not only the baby’s health in the early stages of life, but also his/her future development when they enter society, “says the specialist.
With respect to the international event in which he will represent Cuba, the doctor reported that they intend to discuss on the progress of the program also implemented in other Latin American countries, and said that it is a free service to all nations, thanks to the responsibility of governments and non-governmental organizations committed to fund the treatments for children, and which count on excellent specialists as absolute guarantee to sharpen their visual skills.
The most likely cause for retinopathy of prematurity is the overexposure of the babies’ retinae to the blue-light hazard from the fluorescent light in the typical intensive care nursery. Please see the documentation on the pages beginning at http://retinopathyofprematurity.org/Babyblindinglights01.htm. This eye damage started only the year after the commercial introduction of fluorescent lamps, On the other hand, the oxygen breathing help that is usually blamed for this condition had been given for many decades routinely and generously without ever causing any of this eye damage. The 1990s LIGHT-ROP experiment that claimed to have shown the innocence of the nursery lighting was a research fraud because the researchers knowingly applied the eye patches to their allegedly protected group only much too late to do any good. The typical nursery lighting exposes the retinae of a premature baby in less than 15 minutes to the overdose of damage-weighted retinal irradiation that the US Industrial Safety Guidelines have defined as the danger limit for adult industrial workers, but the LIGHT-ROP researchers who were pediatric retinal surgeons protected the babies only up to 24 hours after birth.
Please convey this message to the doctors in Cuba and the rest of Latin America so that they can prevent this eye damage without being misled by intentionally flawed US research. Thank you in advance for your help in protecting premature babies from this ongoing epidemic.