Delays in tests that can save eyesight

Thousands of New Zealanders are caught in delays for health checks that could save their sight, a Weekend Herald investigation has found.

Clinicians at a major DHB have reported more people turning up with vision-threatening disease when their eyes are finally checked for diabetes damage, which if poorly controlled can cause sight loss and blindness.

That can be prevented through regular eye checks, to detect the start of damage to the retina and, through treatment, prevent vision loss.

Data obtained by the Weekend Herald indicates at least 66,000 people with diabetes aren’t getting free eye checks. In some areas already poor screening coverage has gone backwards after Covid-19.

Lockdowns 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 increased funding to clear backlogs and increase coverage, and says there’s a “very low” risk of people losing sight while waiting, thanks to triaging. However, some clinicians disagree.

“In the last 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 vision-threatening disease,” says Dr Peter Hadden, chair 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 20 DHBs. The Ministry of Health aims for regular checks of 90 per cent of people with diabetes.

Data obtained under the Official Information Act reveals that, in fact, most DHBs are screening only 45 to 65 per cent. Some health boards didn’t provide an estimate.

That worries Anne Niulesã, who as a 37-year-old woke up to find herself blind, due to Type 2 diabetes. She told her story to raise awareness.

“I felt alone. Isolated. Coming to terms with my reality was just unbearable. I cried myself to sleep,” Niulesã said of the weeks after she went blind in January 2017.

“I think of what it’s done to me. And if it was to happen to someone else, what effect that might have on their friends, their family, their circles.”