These last days Dutch media report about four patients who recently had a laser surgery in Portugal and now suffer from serious side-effects and probably even blindness. The surgery was done by Dutch eye doctor Franz Versteeg. This doctor also works in a Dutch clinic called Eye-Q-Vision and was already mentioned in connection to problems after laser surgery a few years ago. Treatments in the Dutch clinic have been postponed until the Dutch Health Inspection has investigated the case. Eye-Q-Vision offers laser surgery for only 595 euro per eye. Reyer Lafeber of the Eyescan clinic at Utrecht in the Netherlands assures us that safe and sound laser surgery is impossible for that price. “Risks are far too high like we see now again. Safe eye laser surgery is certainly no problem but demands serious investments in equipment, know-how and yearly updates of the software in order to assure patients the best possible treatment. Side-effects like these ones, although luckily enough rarely seen and reported, are very bad for the perspective of laser surgery in general but totally unnecessary as long as all expensive measures are taken to assure the patients safety. Almost everyone today knows someone who successfully underwent an eye laser surgery and is satisfied and happy with the results. Clinics like Eyescan and the optometrists of the Eyescan Examination Centers invest a lot to inform people and offer them the best possible treatment today. This kind of publicity will frighten people but probably also helps to make them realize that “cheap” in the end is probably “expensive” when we talk about the safety of our eyes”.
