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People are going blind for thelack of basic eye checks as they are too afraid to travel to a hospital or optician.

Specialist doctors have told the Telegraph that people risk irreparable damage to their eyes as waiting rooms which were usually full, are now almost empty.

One eye clinic reported that half of their patients with macular degeneration are failing to attend essential treatment, without which they will go blind.

One doctor told the Telegraph that he had seen a drop off of around 90 per cent, and that it had been four or five weeks since he had seen a single patient referred for their first vital appointment after being referred from an optician.

Patients with wet type macular degeneration, need to be seen regularly in the eye clinic to decide if they need the injections, and to be treated so that the vision stabilates at that level, said Professor Sobha Sivaprasad, consultant ophthalmologist at Moorfields Eye Hospital.

If they don't attend these visits then it will have a lasting impact on their sight. These conditions are sight-threatening

In a clinic we'd see about 100 patients each day and was always overbooked, half of those were not coming in.

They're not coming in because of fear - whether that's of public transport, getting the infection just getting out of their house.

Macular diseases are by far the biggest cause of sight loss in the UK, with nearly 1.5m people estimated to be living with some form of the condition.

Every day, around 300 people are diagnosed with macular disease. It can affect people of any age even children and there is still no cure.

Cilla Shell worked for 14 years in clinical governance within the NHS. The 68 year-old from Hornchurch said that she was scared to go to hospital for her routine appointments.

Read more:
People going blind as they are 'too scared' to see a doctor or optician - Telegraph.co.uk

This entry was posted on May 24, 2020 at 7:43 pm and is filed under Eye Sight & Vision. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |