A BBC journalist has spoke candidly about her close shave with losing her sight in one eye after a routine visit to the opticians. Lucy Owen, a contact lens wearer since she was 16, said she had “not always been to the opticians as regularly as I should” and put off making her annual check-up appointments. But when she noticed flashing in one eye, which came on infrequently and when she looked to the side, she finally made an appointment with her local high street optician. Upon discovering that her retina was in the process of detaching, Owen was told that without surgery she would “lose my sight in that eye.”
Following the trauma, which forced her to spend a whole week lying on one side in the aftermath of the 40-minute operation, Owen has lent her support to a Welsh government publicity campaign encouraging people to go and see their opticians. The public service announcement is designed to help ease the grinding backlog of hospital eye care patients, which has only been exacerbated by the pandemic. It also announces the extension of a scheme which allows optometrists to treat patients for a range of eye conditions. Opticians on the high street will be able to treat common ailments like uveitis and conjunctivitis with steroids and antibiotics.
According to Owen, the pressure on hospital eye care has put a massive strain on National Health Service (NHS) resources. She explained that if people have regular checks with their opticians “more serious health conditions, such as diabetes, glaucoma and myopia” could be caught and dealt with earlier, having a knock-on effect for overall public health. However, health officials have a major task on their hands. Waiting times for eye care in the NHS have risen by a quarter since 2019 and there are now more than 55,000 people waiting for an appointment, as opposed to the 20,000 who were waiting prior to the pandemic
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