By MARISSA WILLIAMS Tobago Bu Monday, June 25 2007

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SAVE HER SIGHT: John Taylor, 58, with four-year-old granddaughter Shinella Cooper who is awaiting an eye examination prior to cataract surgery. ...

JOHN TAYLOR, 58, a Tobago grandfather, is pleading with officials at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex (EWMSC) in Mt Hope to save his granddaughter’s vision by carrying out an urgent eye examination which is a prerequisite for a cataract removal surgery.

Taylor of Mt Thomas visited Newsday’s Tobago Bureau office with his four-year-old granddaughter Shinella Cooper yesterday.

He said his eyesight was also failing him as he also suffers with cataracts. “If I am to go blind, so be it. But please save my granddaughter’s sight. She is only four years old and has her entire life ahead of her,” Taylor pleaded.

He said that three weeks ago, a visiting ophthalmologist at the Scarborough Regi-onal Hospital gave the family a letter advising that an urgent eye examination be conducted on Cooper in order to proceed with vision-saving a cataract removal surgery.

Taylor said the letter was faxed to Mt Hope by a Social Welfare Officer at Scarborough Hospital, but he claimed that to date, several calls to Mt Hope turned up one excuse after another.

He said the last time he called Mt Hope (last week) he told a clerk that the letter he faxed was urgent, to which she replied: “every letter is urgent”. She advised that Cooper would have to wait six weeks before getting a date to have her eyes examined.

“I am afraid that this delay could leave her blind because while we are waiting on Mt Hope, the cataract is growing and she can barely see,” Taylor said. “The surgery can be done in Tobago but it is really Mt Hope keeping back the process because of that one test. This goes to show how Tobagonians have to suffer for health care,” he complained.

“My granddaughter can go blind while people in Mt Hope telling me that ‘all letters are urgent’. I think they can do better than this,” Taylor said. He said that in February, Shinella was taken to a private doctor in Trinidad who requested a report from the paediatric division at the Scarborough Hospital on the feasibility of proceeding with the examination.

Taylor said that he intends to talk to the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) Secretary for Health and Social Services, Oswald Williams for assistance. Efforts to get a comment from Mt Hope officials on this issue proved futile yesterday.