Dublin South West TD Se\u00e1n Crowe has described the Government\u2019s failure to tackle waiting lists for patients waiting for cataract operations as awful and unacceptable. The Sinn F\u00e9in TD said that the huge waiting list for this important operation, for people at risk of losing their sight, must be urgently tackled.<\/p>\n
Teachta Se\u00e1n Crowe said:<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is truly awful that people with cataract problems know that a simple operation can transform their lives, but because of the Government and HSE\u2019s mishandling of waiting lists, the long delays in getting this operation mean they face the prospect of slowly going blind.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe procedure usually takes around 10 minutes to perform, yet there are currently 7,541 patients waiting on an operation across the State.<\/p>\n
“These patients may have seriously impaired vision because of the cataract on their eye and the longer they have to wait for an operation the increased likelihood is that their limited vision may be impaired permanently.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe scale of the situation affects all areas of the State. Dublin\u2019s Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital has 1,609 patients waiting in the hope of an appointment, while University Hospital Waterford has a total of 1,583 patients waiting on their list.<\/p>\n
\u201cMany cataract patients are travelling to the North or to other destinations to try and get their life changing surgery. Behind every waiting list number is a person and many of them are senior citizens.<\/p>\n
\u201cAccording to a recent parliamentary question there are currently 315 cataracts patients who have been waiting over 18 months for their operation. That is truly scandalous.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe clearly need to look at how cataract surgery is carried out in Ireland. The HSE\u2019s \u2018Primary Care Eye Services Review Group Report\u2019 highlights the limitations of the current model of delivery and has sought to set out the way forward for a significant amount of eye services to be delivered in a Primary Care setting. This will create movement and is to be welcomed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Government\u2019s failure to address waiting lists for cataract operations for patients who risk losing their sight is a truly awful and it needs to be urgently addressed. The HSE\u2019s Primary Care Eye Services report needs to be implemented fully and a plan drawn up that will seriously reduce\u00a0 the waiting lists for the 7,541 patients currently waiting for positive news.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n
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Dublin South West TD Se\u00e1n Crowe has described the Government\u2019s failure to tackle waiting lists for patients waiting for cataract operations as awful and unacceptable. The Sinn F\u00e9in TD said that the huge waiting list for this important operation, for people at risk of losing their sight, must be urgently tackled. Teachta Se\u00e1n Crowe said: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[378,44,166,182],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cataracts","category-health","category-hse","category-waiting-lists"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3419"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3419\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3420,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3419\/revisions\/3420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}