Five elders, including at least three octogenarians, out of ten people who had eye operations last month at the same hospital in central Vietnam have suffered serious postoperative infection, with one even having his right eye removed.

The ten engaged in an eye surgery program run by the Ministry of Health and their operations were carried out at Quang Nam Area General Hospital, located in the central province of Quang Nam.  One of the sufferers is Truong Thi Tinh, 87, of the province’s Dien Ban District, who had an eye surgery at the hospital on March 21. The surgery was performed by a team consisting of doctors from the hospital and Da Nang Eye Hospital, situated in neighboring Da Nang City.   Three days after the operation, the Quang Nam infirmary allowed Tinh to go home but the old woman asked it to let her stay on since she felt a pain in the operated eye. Tinh was then transferred to Da Nang Eye Hospital for further treatment as the eye’s condition got worse. She is staying at the Da Nang hospital with an ache still lingering in the eye. Similarly, Nguyen Thi An, 81, has developed an infection in one of her eyes after a surgery at Quang Nam Area General Hospital on the same day as Tinh. An was admitted to Da Nang Eye Hospital on March 25. “My mother-in-law wanted to have an eye operation to improve her weak eyesight, but she has suffered pains caused by the infection,” Do Thi Trang, An’s daughter-in-law said. Trang added that An would have to undergo another surgery on her eye to treat the infection. “I am worried about whether the eye can recover after the next operation,” Trang said. Meanwhile, Nguyen Dinh Quang, an 83-year-old patient, had to have his right eye removed after he underwent an eye operation to sharpen his vision at Quang Nam Area General Hospital. “The eye was seriously infected postoperatively, so it had to be removed,” Quang said. “I wanted to have my eye treated so that I could see better. I had not imagined I would lose it after that surgery.” The other two also suffered similar infections and have been admitted to Da Nang Eye Hospital.  Operating room shut down The five elders are among the ten people who were given eye treatment last month under the Health Ministry’s Program 1816 in which technologies were intended to be transferred from large hospitals to smaller ones, said Dr. Vo Don, director of Quang Nam Area General Hospital.  Under the program, doctors from Da Nang Eye Hospital joined their counterparts in Quang Nam to perform eye surgeries on the above ten people, Dr. Don said. The method used in these operations is Phacoemulsification (Phaco), referring to modern cataract surgery in which the internal lens is emulsified with an ultrasonic handpiece and aspirated from the eye. After infections occurred to five of the ten patients, the hospital has closed the operating theater and is investigating their cause, the doctor said. Dr. Tran Nghi, director of Da Nang Eye Hospital, confirmed that his hospital received the five patients transferred from the Quang Nam hospital on March 25, 27 and 28.  Except Quang whose right eye was removed due to a serious infection, the four others had their preliminary operations to extract pus from their eyes on March 31 and are being monitored, Dr. Nghi said. “We will try our best to treat the patients to recover their vision as much as possible, but an entire recovery is hard to achieve,” Dr. Nghi said. The doctor added that the post-surgery complications might have stemmed from operating room problems.