Making eye treatments quick and easy

MANILA, Philippines - For most people, when they experience some eye strain, blurring of vision or some other problem with our eyes, their immediate action would be to see an optometrist in an optical shop thinking that eye glasses would quickly solve their problems.

However, “not because your vision is clear with the eye glasses does it mean that you are free of eye disease,” says Dr. Carlos Naval, medical director of the Galileo Surgicenter.

For all the people know, they could already be developing a more serious eye problem such as cataract or glaucoma.

Cataract and glaucoma are the two leading causes of blindness in people, which is why when Galileo Surgicenter started in 2002, the services it offered were focused on the treatment of these eye diseases.

As time went on, however, it continually improved on and added more to its services and their facilities.

“We took our eight years of existence as a sign that we were offering something good to the public so we decided to extend our services to include refractive surgery which include laser for myopia, hyperopia and farsightedness, and also eye surgeries for correcting vision problems for patients who are beyond the LASIK treatment,” says Naval.

It has also taken the opportunity to renovate the center that is why last Nov. 9, it conducted a press conference at the launch and blessing of its newly renovated facility at the Belson House building along EDSA in Mandaluyong City.

Moreover, since the field of ophthalmology has progressed so much in the last two decades, they at Galileo Surgicenter have made sure to have only the latest and most advanced tools and equipment for conducting the services they now offer.

The center is equipped with facilities for doing cataract surgery, for example, in less than 10 minutes, something that would require many long and somewhat traumatic procedures, and an even longer recovery period with the old practices.

With the facilities they have at the Galileo, Naval confidently says, “Philip­pine ophthalmology is at par with the international standards.”

The Galileo Surgicenter is also an ambulatory eye care facility. Unlike in hospitals where patients have to go through a long, rigorous and tiring tests and procedures which could take weeks before they are finally treated, they could simply walk into the Surgicenter and come out a few minutes to a few hours after with their eyes fully treated.

“Some even go and have both eyes done in one sitting and they feel as if they have new eyes,” says Naval. They at Galileo have modeled their whole facility to have everything their patients will need to get a complete and comprehensive treatment for the eye diseases they have covered in their services.

Furthermore, Galileo, unlike hospitals again, is not an in-patient facility. “90 percent of ophthalmic surgeries are outpatient procedures so we can confidently say that 90 percent of the time, we can cure you at our center,” says Naval.

For more information on Galileo Surgicenter and of the eye care services it offers, visit it at the ground floor, Belson House, 271 EDSA, Mandaluyong City, or call 0917-8847466.