Hun­dreds of pa­tients across Trinidad and To­ba­go’s pub­lic hos­pi­tals may be wait­ing in lim­bo for crit­i­cal surg­eries—some for months, oth­ers for years.

Now, a com­mit­tee ap­point­ed by the Min­istry of Health is try­ing to put hard num­bers to those de­lays.

Tasked with au­dit­ing the back­log of surg­eries across the five Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ties (RHAs), the com­mit­tee is al­so doc­u­ment­ing how long pa­tients have been wait­ing for var­i­ous pro­ce­dures—in­clud­ing cataract and oth­er eye surg­eries.