Patients in Northwestern Ontario with certain retinal detachments can now receive treatment in Thunder Bay, avoiding emergency travel to Winnipeg or southern Ontario.
(Via TBNewswatch.com)
Patients with retinal detachments no longer need to travel out of the region for emergency treatment, after a new procedure was introduced at the Regional Health Sciences Centre.
The hospital has now treated about a dozen patients locally using pneumatic retinopexy, a minimally invasive procedure that can repair specific types of retinal detachments.
“When I started here, I noticed all the patients were being sent out to Winnipeg or Southern Ontario because we lacked the specialized equipment here,” said Dr. Alex Pisig, a retinal specialist who joined the Thunder Bay ophthalmology team last summer.
He said the need for local treatment became clear shortly after arriving in the city, noting that retinal detachment is a time-sensitive condition that can lead to permanent vision loss if untreated.
“Retinal detachment is a serious eye condition that, if not recognized early, can potentially cause blindness,” he said.
Pisig said patients were often forced to travel long distances for care, sometimes under difficult and risky conditions.
“I can’t imagine how difficult it is for patients to travel to Winnipeg just to have specialized eye care,” he said.
Bob Campbell was the first patient treated locally after arriving at the emergency department with concerning vision changes.
“I wouldn’t say I was super concerned at the beginning,” he said. “But when it didn’t go away, you start to investigate what this could be, and I quite quickly discovered that this was something that was an emergency.”
He underwent treatment the same day.
“I went into emergency on that Thursday morning and came out at 7 that night with the procedure completed,” Campbell said.
He said he was surprised to learn patients in the region had routinely been sent out of Thunder Bay for the same treatment.
“I couldn’t believe that people were sent away from a world-class facility here to get what I thought was a relatively simple procedure,” he said.
That reality became clearer when he considered what travel could mean for patients needing urgent care.
“I rolled the highway for 30-something years in the energy sector, and I know the carnage that happens out there in the winter,” he said. “For somebody to be on their way to a procedure and have travel be the riskiest part made no sense to me.”
Pisig said early detection is critical.
“The three Fs of retinal detachment are floaters, flashes and field of vision loss,” he said. “If you see those symptoms, go to your optometrist or the emergency room.”
The procedure works by injecting a small gas bubble into the eye, which helps reposition the retina before it is sealed with laser or freezing treatment.
“The bubble will float up and push the retina back into place,” Pisig said.
Pisig said the program was made possible through support from hospital administrators and the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Foundation, which helped secure specialized equipment.
While the service now handles simpler cases locally, more advanced retinal surgery still requires additional equipment and training.
“At this point, we are able to treat only the simple cases,” he said. “But for more complex cases, we will need full equipment capable of doing more advanced retinal surgery.”
He said expanding the service remains a long-term goal.
“Hopefully we’ll be able to acquire that specialized equipment in the next couple of years,” he said, adding that training staff will be just as important as equipment.
“We also need to train very competent nurses and technicians,” he said. “That’s how we build this service properly here in Thunder Bay.”
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