Sight Loss

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 2:08 pm on 2 December 2020.

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Photo of Janet Finch-Saunders Janet Finch-Saunders Conservative 2:08, 2 December 2020

Thank you. Ten months have proceeded without monthly data on ophthalmology out-patients being published. Four days ago, BBC Wales disclosed that Mrs Helen Jeremy has been left blind after treatment delayed due to the pandemic. Mrs Jeremy lives in Bridgend, but many are facing a crisis in the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board. Now, RNIB have warned that thousands more people in Wales are at risk of irreversible sight loss because of these treatment delays. An FOI by BBC Wales to all health boards found more than 33,000 people at risk of sight loss were simply waiting too long for treatment. Forty per cent of hyper reflective foci patients were waiting beyond their clinically safe target date as of May 2020, and the number of people waiting more than nine months for cataract surgery has quadrupled. So will you, Minister, act on the calls of the director of RNIB Cymru and provide sufficient resources to make sure that these people are seen and their eyesight is saved?