Sam Rowlands, Member of the Welsh Parliament for North Wales (pictured) has expressed concern over the future of eye care in the country.
Mr Rowlands, Shadow Health Minister, last week raised the issue that people in Wrexham, were waiting three years for glaucoma operations while across the border in Cheshire, it was only four weeks.
Opening the Welsh Conservative debate on eye care he said: “'A tidal wave of blindness'—that's a stark warning from a leading doctor on the state of eye care here in Wales. As it stands, more than 80,000 people in Wales are at the highest risk of irreversible sight loss, with eye care accounting for one in every eight patients languishing on a Welsh NHS waiting list.
“The number of ophthalmology patients waiting beyond their target date has more than doubled in the past five years, and in the last decade, referrals to ophthalmic services have increased by over 50%.
“The numbers are staggering, but it's the personal stories that I'm sure we all hear of in our inboxes and on phone calls that are tragic. A person got in touch with me just this week saying that they're on a list for a cataract operation at a hospital in North Wales and they've been told that the wait for the surgery is two and a half years. That can have a massive impact on a person's life and they can lose their sight.
“Let's not forget that this loss of sight, many times, is treatable, but people are losing their sight because they're waiting too long on these lists, which is ultimately the responsibility of Labour Ministers in this place.
“I recently visited Specsavers in North Wales, in Broughton, who are working to treat people with eye problems. And at a national level, they want to be able to support, with the training and development of optometrists, as they have done in other parts of the UK. It's organisations like this that can help take the strain off the NHS, and make sure that people are seen as quickly as possible instead of waiting, literally, for years.”
Mr Rowlands called on the Welsh Government to adopt measures to tackle the deep-seated issues that impact eye healthcare in Wales and for Ministers to set targets and deadlines for improving waiting list backlogs.
Jeremy Miles Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care said although progress has been made to reduce long waiting times for eye care, there is still work to be done in order to deal with the backlog that built up during the pandemic.
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