Covid weakening vision health service
Thousands of New Zealanders are caught in delays for health checks that could save their eyesight, a Weekend Herald investigation has found.
Clinicians at one major DHB have reported an increase in people turning up with vision-threatening disease when their eyes are finally checked for damage from diabetes which, if poorly controlled, can cause sight loss and blindness.
That can be prevented through regular eye checks, to detect any beginnings of damage to the retina and, through subsequent treatment, prevent the loss of vision.
Data obtained by the Weekend Herald indicates at least 66,000 people with diabetes aren’t getting free eye checks, and that number could be higher. In some areas already-poor screening coverage has gone backwards after Covid-19.
Lockdowns have also worsened delays for those who are enrolled. More than 9200 people are overdue for screening in Waitemata¯ DHB, which covers West and north Auckland. The DHB has pledged a big increase in funding to clear backlogs and increase coverage, and says there’s a “very low” risk of people losing sight while waiting, because of triaging. However, some clinicians dispute that.
“In the past year there has been a large increase in the number of patients having their screening delayed, and when they do turn up they more often have visionthreatening disease,” says Dr Peter Hadden, chairman of the New Zealand branch of the Royal Australian and NZ College of Ophthalmologists, which has members at Waitemata¯.
Screening is the responsibility of each of the country’s 20 DHBS. The
Ministry of Health has a target of regular checks for 90 per cent of people living with diabetes, but doesn’t monitor performance.
Data obtained under the Official Information Act shows most DHBS are screening 45-65 per cent. Some DHBS didn’t provide an estimate.
That worries Anne Niulesa¯, who as a 37-year-old woke up completely blind, a complication of her type 2 diabetes.
“I felt alone. Isolated. Coming to terms with my reality was just unbearable. I cried myself to sleep,” Niulesa¯ said of the weeks after she went blind in 2017.