A couple have cataract surgery together at Edgware Hospital

Mary and Kypros Constantino asked to have their procedures done together, Rana Rastegari reports

A couple who have been married for over 50 years recently underwent cataract surgery together at Edgware Community Hospital’s eye surgery centre.

Aged 78 and 84, Mary and Kypros Constantino asked to have their procedures done together so they could help each other.

The couple originally met when Mary and her brother went to a restaurant for a meal and saw Kypros, who was the head chef.

Mary said: “We looked at each other and liked each other. Then 3 months later we got married and we’re still together after all these years because marriage…you have to make it last. We have problems, everybody has problems, but you have to make it work.”

They have overcome a number of health challenges in recent years. At the height of the pandemic in 2020, Kypros battled Covid-19 and was treated at Barnet Hospital.

Kypros explains that there was a doctor in the hospital who couldn’t leave his bed and said “I want you to survive”.

He stated: “I couldn’t forget that. I owe my life to nurses and doctors”

They have each now had their two cataract operations at Edgware Community Hospital and explained that going to the hospital is now like coming back to a ‘second home’.

Dr Laurence Whitefield, the ophthalmologist who operated on the couple, said it was ‘quite unusual to have a husband and wife on the same operating list. Now I’ve been lucky enough to do it twice, but with the same couple.”

He added: “I did the first operation last month and did the right eye for both of them and this time I did their left eye. It put a smile on everyone’s face.”

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