PUBLIC PATIENTS are waiting up to two years for cataract operations, a consultant ophthalmic surgeon has said. At the launch of the Cost of Sight Lossreport yesterday, Prof Colm O'Brien said cataract patients were waiting up to 12 months to be seen by a specialist and a further 12 months on surgery waiting lists before they had cataract operations to restore their sight.
“It is a delay of two years in having a cataract operation and at the age of 75, that’s a long, long wait to be suffering.”
Vision impairment costs the State €386 million a year, according to the report, prepared by Deloitte Access Economics for the National Council of the Blind in Ireland (NCBI).
Some €117 million is spent on health costs and €269 million is lost through indirect costs including lost productivity, welfare payments and caregiver time.
The report found almost 225,000 people in Ireland are living with conditions ranging from low vision, which prevents driving, to total sight loss.
The figure could rise to more than 270,000 by 2020 and cost the State €449 million, the report found.
Des Kenny, chief executive of the NCBI, said increasing costs to the State could be countered through regular screening for the elderly, people with diabetes and other groups at risk of eye disease.
“If you don’t look after the consequences of sight loss, there is the possibility that people will become subjected to clinical depression, people will suffer falls and sustain injury and be hospitalised and people will be admitted to nursing homes earlier than they should be.”
Launching the report, Minister for Health James Reilly said his department would be tendering “in the next few weeks” for a national diabetic retinography screening programme.
