SCREENING FOR people with diabetes who are at risk of blindness will begin in the northwest from late summer, at a cost of €750,000.
However, while screening in all HSE areas would cost about €4 million it is unlikely to happen because of the current budget situation.
The retinopathy screening programme will be rolled out on a phased basis to other areas of the State “having regard to overall resource availability and other competing priorities”, according to Minister of State for Health Mary Wallace.
Some 30,000 people in the west Limerick to north Donegal region with diabetes will be screened, but “there will be no relief for the 110,000 other people with diabetes in the rest of the country”, according to Fine Gael health spokesman Dr James Reilly.
Screening will begin in the HSE west region because a similar programme had been established in the former North-Western Health Board area.
The programme is due to start “in the third quarter of 2009”.
Up to 10 per cent of people with diabetes have “sight-threatening retinopathy”, a disease of the macula, and Dr Reilly said that if they do not receive treatment, up to 16,000 will end up with retinopathy by the end of next year.
He said during Dáil Health Questions that every euro spent on prevention would save €12- €20 in treatment.
There would be an ongoing annual cost of €2.5 million for the programme but “the cost to the State of the care of 100 people who are sight impaired runs to €2.4 million”, according to Dr Reilly.
“For the price of looking after 100 blind people, we can prevent thousands of cases of blindness. If there was ever a case of penny-wise pound foolish, this is it.”
He spoke of a man “who went blind waiting for an outpatient’s appointment. He went to England and had partial sight restored to his left eye. He has returned here and on at least three occasions prior to a six- month appointment he was told it had been put back for another six months.
“This man is extremely angry for his own sake and for the sake of the many other people he knows who suffer the same consequences. It is a small amount of money for what is a form of prevention.”
But Ms Wallace said screening would cost €4 million and stressed that “the key message is that despite the difficult financial situation, this is being rolled out in the HSE western region”.
