Elderly people in the Republic of Ireland are going blind for lack of a simple 20 minute procedure.
That’s what Gript was told by Independent TDs Michael Collins and Danny Healy-Rae, standing outside the Dáil at 5:45 a.m. on a freezing cold March morning.
Collins, who represents Cork South-West, told the Gript team about the health problems facing older people in the 26 counties.
People going blind needlessly
“[We have] people of seventy, eighty, ninety years of age, going blind for want of a twenty minute surgical procedure that can’t take place in their own county,” he said.
When asked what got him interested in this issue, Collins said: “The motivation was the people coming to my clinic pleading with me to get cataract procedures carried out, as it’s a 20 or 25 minute procedure and they’re going blind. And they’ve been told it could take anything from three to six years before they could have that operation.”
That’s when, in 2017, Collins met a representative of Kingsbridge Private Hospital at the Ploughing Championships. There he stumbled across what he called an “incredible solution” – busing people to Belfast to save their eyesight, in a scheme is known as the “Northern Ireland Healthcare Initiative.”
To date, the rural independent TDs have organised over 84 buses and counting.
Healy-Rae, however, lamented how healthcare has changed over the years.
In the 80s cataracts were “no problem”
“Up until the mid-70s or even the 80s it was no problem to get a cataract removed in your own local hospital,” the Kerry TD said.
“Now with the HSE, like a lot of other things, it’s so hard to get it. The waiting lists are so long – I know people that were waiting 6 and 7 years before they got their cataracts removed in Belfast.”
He added: “The word is go to Belfast or go blind. That’s the story here in the 26 counties.”
“It’s bloody awful”
On the bus, Gript spoke to one woman from Cork, near Kinsale, and noted what a long journey it was for her.
“Oh it is, yeah,” she said.
“But sure we have to. We’ve no other choice. We won’t get it done in Cork anyway, that’s for certain.”
She said she had been on a waiting list since 2013 – 9 years – which she described as “a disgrace.”
“It’s bloody awful. It’s disappointing. Do you know what I mean?”
“At a certain age they don’t bother with you”
The woman said she felt, at a certain age, there was less care given to elderly people.
“I mean, when you get to a certain age I think they just don’t want to bother with you anyway,” she said.
“Now, you could if you had private insurance – you’d have no problems, like. My cousin had private insurance and got the two eyes done in six weeks. You know? So it is very sad that you’re thrown to the wolves.
“[This procedure] was very important altogether, because my optician said he wouldn’t let me have a driver’s licence if I didn’t have the procedures done.”
Rural people need transport
She said that blindness in the country was more serious than in the city, because in the country “you need to have transport.”
“To go anywhere you have to have a car, like. You know what I mean?”
But, as soon as she became nervous about her vision, she said she got in touch with Michael Collins and was on the first bus up to Derry to get her first eye done. It was, in her words, “perfect.”
“It was a complete success,” she said.
“It was brilliant. Brilliant… It was Christmas time and they treated us like royalty. It was fantastic. If the Queen was there she wouldn’t have been treated so well.”
“Unbelievable” how far people are travelling
Gript interviewed people from such as Clonakilty and Mallow, and heard of more distant areas, with individuals saying they were struggling to even read, let alone drive.
“It’s unbelievable to think that people have left West Cork – places like Clonakilty and Skibbereen, parts of Cork City and Kerry, Dublin and Limerick this morning,” said Michael Collins.
“Some of them maybe never went to bed last night.”
“Going dark”
He added that his mother had gone blind when he was a child, which he could never forget.
“I remember as a 10 and 11-year-old child going to the local hospital to feed her every day in Schull,” he said.
“It’s one thing if you’re talking about open heart surgery, but Lord God, when you can’t have simple eye surgery. When you think of of these people who worked hard all their lives, who the state has failed so they can’t get a 20 minute procedure carried out in their own local hospital…”
Similarly, Healy-Rae spoke of his grandmother who lived to be 97, and lived in fear of going blind – or in her words, “going dark.”
Many would “rather be dead than go blind”
“So many have told me they’d rather be dead than go blind,” said Collins.
“And it’s a sad reflection of the state of this country today that they’d leave people to go blind, rather than looking after their eyesight.
HSE is a “spent force,” not worth the salaries
“The HSE as far as I’m concerned is a spent force. You look at all the top brass – look at the money they’re getting. Nobody’s worth that money. No human being is worth that money.”
Collins went on to slam HSE chief Paul Reid.
“He should have been out here this morning. He should be talking to these people. He should be coming up with a solution. He and other professionals are paid astronomical fees, their expenses for their cars are more than what most people get in their wages, or maybe a couple get in their wages per year.
“It’s outrageous,” he concluded.
The full video and interviews can be viewed below.
