An 81-year-old grandmother has become the 10,000th patient to undergo cataract surgery at the specialist unit in Ireland’s only public eye hospital.
Dubliner Rita Bird underwent the 25-minute procedure on her left eye in the Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital on Tuesday, three months after her right eye was operated on.
“I can feel my vision failing, but only lately,” the chatty mother of six and grandmother of nine said just before the procedure. “I had to give up the reading and the knitting and my back gives me a lot of trouble.”
Mrs Bird loves her television and hopes to get back to it quickly after the operation. Normally, she lives on her own in Walkinstown but will go to respite care for a time before Christmas.
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The unit opened six years ago and made major inroads into waiting lists for eye surgery until the Covid-19 pandemic intervened. Thereafter, waiting lists remained high for a time due to pent-up demand after the pandemic.
“Demand shot up after we introduced a new model of providing more eye care in the community,” says chief executive Tommy Bracken. “This has provided wider access to our services.”
The cataract unit, which opened in July 2017 was funded by the hospital. At the time, about 2,200 cataract operations were being performed on patients threatened with sight loss. More than 1,800 patients were waiting longer than a year for an operation.
By December 2019, thanks to the new theatre, the waiting list had been virtually eliminated, with fewer than 100 patients waiting longer than three months.
“Then Covid-19 got in the way and we had to pare back outpatient visits,” Mr Bracken says. “This had a big effect on the cataract list.”
The unit is now capable of doing 4,200 cataract procedures a year, and hopes to get up to 6,200 by 2030.
About 11,000 patients have been seen in the four clinics in the community, in Churchtown, Kilnamanagh, Wicklow and Tallaght, with patients requiring surgery referred to the hospital.
Unlike other hospitals, the “Eye and Ear” does not rely on outsourcing of operations to reduce its waiting lists. The outpatient waiting list has dropped from 4,000 in January 2022 to 500 at present. Mr Bracken says it is hoped to eliminate the list by February.
There is no walk-in service for emergency patients, who are advised to contact their GP or optician first before contacting the emergency department.
Eye emergency cases are triaged over the phone and appointments are made depending on the urgency of the patient’s condition. Mr Bracken says this measure, which was introduced during the Covid-19 pandemic, allows for better identification of patients with the most urgent clinical needs.
The hospital hopes to add operating theatres and expand to the rear of its main building, he says. It has no plans to move from the site it has occupied since 1904.
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