Vision care continues to be a critical public health issue, affecting thousands of visually impaired people living in the Caribbean.

Newly elected President of the Caribbean Council for the Blind and Visually Impaired, Bhawani Persad, stressed that blindness is not caused solely by lifestyle diseases. He noted that prolonged delays in treatment also play a significant role, emphasising that “an ounce of prevention is greater than a pound of cure.”

“We hope that the waiting time for these services, for these surgeries, can be minimised as far as humanly possible because a cataract is curable . In other cases, glaucoma can be managed; however, it is not reversible to the extent that full sight can be restored. Diabetes continues to be a tremendous factor in how people obtain eye health, in terms of taking care of your whole health system, so you can avoid diabetes as far as humanly possible, but it is one of the major leading causes of blindness in Trinidad and Tobago and the region.”