Cape Animal Eye Hospital

Welcome to the Cape Animal Eye Hospital, a proud member of the South African Animal Eye Hospital group.

The Cape Animal Eye Hospital is a referral veterinary practice dedicated to the diagnosis and treatment of animal eye disease. The practice was founded in 1996 by registered veterinary ophthalmologists Drs Goodhead and Venter. In 2008, Dr Lo-An Odayar joined the JAEH and is now only seen on special occasions. Since then Dr Christie Boucher joined the team in 2016.

Although dogs, cats and horses comprise the majority of our patients, we have treated a wide variety of other animals including, birds, cheetahs, elephants, lions, rhinos, snakes, and tigers.

Our Gauteng hospital is situated in Fourways, Johannesburg and our Western Cape Animal Eye hospital is in Panorama, Cape Town. We also consult from the Faculty of Veterinary Science at Onderstepoort, near Pretoria. We are actively involved with the university lecturing both pre- and postgraduate veterinary students. In addition to consulting in Johannesburg and Pretoria, we hold referral clinics approximately every 3 months in Durban. We have also performed surgeries in Southern African countries such as Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia. We make regular consulting and surgery trips in The United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong and Malaysia.

We are involved with all aspects of veterinary ophthalmology and receive referrals from around Southern Africa for cataract surgery in cats, dogs, horses and wildlife.
Some services offered by the Cape Animal Eye Hospital
Eye examination
Specialised equipment is used to examine your animal’s eyes. The front of the eye is examined with a slitlamp biomicroscope. This instrument provides a very good light source as well as good magnification. The retina and optic disk are examined with both direct and indirect ophthalmoscopes. Other diagnostic procedures include tonometry to determine the pressure in the eye; gonioscopy to examine the drainage angle of the eye; cytology to examine conjunctival and corneal cells; Schirmer tear test to measure the tear production; and ophthalmic dyes to assess corneal integrity.

Ultrasonography enables the examiner to visualize structures both within and behind the eye. This is particularly important in ocular conditions that make ophthalmoscopic examination difficult and in cases where there is pathology behind the eye.

Electroretinography (ERG) allows one to measure the electrical activity within the retina and thereby assess it’s functional integrity. This procedure is performed on all our cataract patients to ensure normal retinal function before cataract surgery.