{"id":3882,"date":"2019-07-22T11:53:41","date_gmt":"2019-07-22T11:53:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/?p=3882"},"modified":"2019-07-22T11:53:43","modified_gmt":"2019-07-22T11:53:43","slug":"over-6000-now-waiting-for-cataract-surgery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/over-6000-now-waiting-for-cataract-surgery\/","title":{"rendered":"Over 6,000 Now Waiting for Cataract Surgery"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Over 6,000 Now Waiting for Cataract Surgery<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dublin South\nWest TD Se\u00e1n Crowe has described the Health Service Executive released to his\nSinn Fein colleague Louise O Reilly TD that show figures of over 6,000 people\nwaiting&nbsp;for cataract surgery across the State as unacceptable.&nbsp; There is\ncurrently an average waiting time of 28 months for public cataract surgery in\nIreland and it\u2019s up to 5 years in areas like West Cork <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Crowe claims\nthat&nbsp;Sligo\nand Leitrim have bucked the trend with a waiting time of less than a year and\nwhere patients are co-managed by Optometrists in the community and\nOphthalmologists in the Hospital. The scheme simplifies the patient pathway and\nspeeds up access and the Deputy wants a similar scheme to be adopted right\nacross the State.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cFigures released to my colleague Louise O Reilly TD\nby the HSE have detailed the extent of the staggering waiting times and waiting\nlists for cataract surgery across the State.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAcross the State there are now over 6,151 people on\nwaiting lists for cataract surgery, and most worryingly of all is that 256 of\nthese people have been waiting over a year for treatment.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThere are also five children awaiting this life\nchanging surgery in Temple Street Children\u2019s Hospital, with one them waiting\nover a year.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cCataract procedures usually take around 10 minutes to\nperform, yet there are now&nbsp;over 6,000 patients waiting on an operation\nacross the state, with hundreds of these waiting over a year for\ntreatment.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cPatients suffer when they have to wait for cataract\nsurgery, they lose the use of sight, they lose their independence and\nconfidence, they can have accidents from falls, and all this costs the&nbsp;patient\u2019s\nand the health service financially much more.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe current system is not working \u2013 it needs to be\noverhauled.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThankfully,\nthere is a clear solution in the award-winning Sligo Cataract Scheme. The\nAssociation of Optometrists Ireland have outlined how the Sligo-Leitrim\nconstituency has the shortest waiting time in the State thanks to a simple\ncost-neutral scheme that involves.&nbsp;patients being&nbsp;co-managed by Optometrists in the\ncommunity and Ophthalmologists in Hospital. The scheme also simplifies the\npatient pathway and has been found to speed up access.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;\u201cA&nbsp;model\nof this scheme needs to be replicated&nbsp;urgently and end the unacceptable\nwaiting times for patients and those affected by this medical condition. I\ncannot understand why a model that clearly works is not&nbsp;rolled out across\nthe State so that Optometrists and the Hospital Eye Departments can work\ntogether to reduce these long waiting lists.\u201d ENDS&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over 6,000 Now Waiting for Cataract Surgery Dublin South West TD Se\u00e1n Crowe has described the Health Service Executive released to his Sinn Fein colleague Louise O Reilly TD that show figures of over 6,000 people waiting&nbsp;for cataract surgery across the State as unacceptable.&nbsp; There is currently an average waiting time of 28 months for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3882","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=3882"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3883,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3882\/revisions\/3883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}