By George Alleyne
Uncertainty of the level of
impact of Tropical Storm Dorian
on Barbados until the cyclone
was over the island Monday
night has prompted Prime Minister
Mia Mottley to say it is time
that the region secures control
of its own ‘Hurricane Hunter’
plane.
As the storm gathered
strength just south of Barbados
the island’s weather forecasters
had been depending and publishing
bulletins from the United
States National Hurricane Centre
through the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA).
On Sunday when she
announced, based on NHC predictions
of the storm’s arrival
time, that the island will have
a national shut down at noon
Monday, Mottley said that time
for a halt of all business and
residents seek safety in homes or
shelters could be changed based
on what the US agency’s Hurricane
Hunter found later that
evening.
Hurricane Hunters are specialised
Dr. Enrico Ascher provides the best vascular care
Caribbean L 18 ife, Aug. 30, 2019
aircraft that usually fly
into the eye of an oncoming
storm to collect data that help in
determining its strength, speed
and landfall probabilities along
with other research data.
NHC reports along with that
of the local meteorological office
caused the Barbados shut down
time to be pulled back by two
hours to 10am Monday.
The storm passed over Barbados
around 8 pm Monday in a
much more weakened state than
anticipated because of other
intervening atmospheric conditions.
Officials reported that the
major incidents amounted to
several fallen trees, one house
roof being damaged, and interruption
of electricity and water
supplies to some districts.
“It defies rational explanation.
Everything about it suggested
Barbados should have had significant
damage,” Mottley said
Tuesday morning as she and her
team announced that the island
was again open for business.
Officials in Barbados were not
the only one anticipating a major
impact as St. Lucia had gone on
a hurricane watch, while there
were tropical storm warnings for
Martinique and St. Vincent and
the Grenadines, Grenada and
Dominica.
After Dorian passed over Barbados
in a weakened state, all the
alerts in the other islands were
downgraded.
Martinique so far appears to
have suffered the worse with
heavy rainfall.
“We need to improve how we
plan for these events,” Mottley
said. “We wait for the National
Hurricane Centre to be able
to send a Hurricane Hunter
into the system. The ones that
went into this system went for
research purposes of their own.
And therefore, the data that we
expected or hoped to come was
not there.”
“We are satisfied that we have
reached the point where we have
to take responsibility for our own
affairs,” she said pointing out
that as a US agency NHC is
more concerned with the impact
storms will have on American
land than the Caribbean.
Barbados Prime Minister, Mia Mottley. Photo by George Alleyne
In fact, days before the storm
hit Barbados, NHC reports
appeared to be stressing the likelihood
of it hitting the US territory
of Puerto Rico though there
lay eight island states and one
British dependency in the way.
“We believe working with
our partners, countries in the
region, especially in the Eastern
and Southern Caribbean
that we’re going to need to find
ways to commission for our own
selves a Hurricane Hunter,”
Mottley said, adding that given
this region’s limited financial
resources, “you don’t need to
own an airplane to commission
and charter it to go and do the
work.”
Caribbean needs own Hurricane
Hunter – Barbados prime minister
BUS INES S , B ROOKLYN S T Y LE
We don’t have to travel to Manhattan
to get the best vascular medical
care because we have Dr. Enrico
Ascher, Chief of Vascular and Endovascular
Surgery at NYU Langone
Hospital-Brooklyn, and founder of
the Vascular Institute of New York.
Dr. Ascher is an internationally
recognized vascular surgeon who pioneered
several techniques that are
now utilized worldwide. In addition
to being one of the most experienced
surgeons in this country with over
25,000 procedures and operations performed
over a 3 decade span he finds
time to author and co-author over 300
scientific articles in addition to be the
Chief-editor of a classic textbook in
vascular surgery. His enormous contributions
to the minimally invasive
management of vascular diseases
including aortic aneurysms, stroke
prevention, wound care, varicose
veins and angioplasty and stenting
for PAD have not gone unnoticed. Dr.
Ascher is the only surgeon in the tristate
region to be elected as President
of the Society for Vascular Surgery as
well as The World Federation of Vascular
Societies. During his tenure as
leader of these societies Dr. Ascher
was able to help shape the specialty
and reached out to the medical community
in a partnership to improve
the vascular health of the US population.
Dr. Ascher conceived and develop
the first clinical guidelines for
the management of vascular diseases
and he is recognized by his peers as a
superb surgeon with tremendous talent.
As an example of one of his creative
contributions one can describe
his technique of performing balloon
angioplasty and stenting (in patients
who experience pain in the legs upon
walking) without the use of potentially
harmful contrast material and
with no exposure to radiation!
Dr. Ascher also developed the
mini-incision carotid surgery where
a life threatening plaque can be safely
removed from the artery via one inch
small cut instead of 5-7 inch incision
in the neck. “We have the lowest rate
of complications in the country since
I have not had a single major issue
with hundreds of patient treated with
this technique” - says Dr. Ascher
His groundbreaking techniques
have been adapted worldwide as they
causes less trauma to the patient.
Limb salvage is yet another field
in which Dr. Ascher has earned acclaim.
“We are the first to create a comprehensive
care plan that has vascular
medical specialists and surgeons
working together to treat patients,”
he says. For the most part, vascular
surgeons elsewhere work separately
from vascular medicine physicians,
he says. But by working as a team,
the patient is assured of optimum,
unbiased treatment.
Patients from New York City and
surrounding states have sought Dr.
Ascher’s services, after being told by
other institutions that their limbs
could not be salvaged, and that amputation
was the only option. Yet,
Dr. Ascher and his team were able
to transform their lives by utilizing
techniques they developed to save
the limbs.
“These patients are now walking
on their own two feet,” he says.
Research, studying, and learning
are Dr. Ascher’s passions. He
was the first to perform bypass to the
plantar arteries of the foot, and this
is now widely considered standard
procedure for limb salvage.
Swelling of the legs is a common
problem that causes tremendous
pain, inhibiting lifestyles. This is
another area in which the Vascular
Institute can help, as Dr. Ascher has
published extensively on the subject
of varicose veins. He and his team of
board certified vascular specialists
have performed more than 15,000
laser procedures for the treatment
of varicose veins and leg swelling,
offering several different devices to
customize treatment plans for the
patients who come to his Vascular
Center for relief of symptoms or
for aesthetic reasons. He notes that
swelling of the legs can be caused
by veins that are not visible, so a
thorough examination is really important
to detect the cause of these
problems and to fix them to obtain a
meaningful result.
More than 20 years ago Dr. Ascher
was helping people with aortic
aneurysms — ballooning of the arteries
in the stomach or chest.
“We are so comfortable with
the new, modern techniques, we
are sending patients home the same
day. Just 5 years ago we were keeping
patients for at least 2 days in the
hospital,” he says. “They leave with
a small puncture in the groin, go
home with no pain, and have dinner
with their families.”
This potentially life-threatening
issue is more common than people
realize, he says, and is often found
accidentally when patients undergo
ultrasounds or CAT scans.
“When it becomes painful, these
aneurysms (ballooning of the arteries)
are ready to pop with critical
consequences. So it’s better to fix
them when they achieve a certain
size,” he says.
Notably, the Vascular Institute
was the first wound care center in
New York, and remains one of the
busiest wound care centers in the
area.
Dr. Ascher’s esteemed staff includes
Dr. Anil Hingorani, Dr. Natalie
Marks, Dr. Sareh Rajaee, and
Eleanora Iadgarova, a nurse practitioner.
The practice is open every day,
including weekends, and the staff
can always find an opening to ac -
commodate patients who need immediate
treatment, says the doctor.
Vascular Institute of New York
960 50th St.between Ninth and
10th avenues in Borough Park,
(718) 438-3800, www.vascularnyc.com.
Open every day, 8 am – 5 pm.
Additional locations:
Queens; 97-32 63rd Rd.,
Queens; 432 E. 149th St. in the Bronx.
/www.vascularnyc.com
/www.vascularnyc.com