‘This is a life they are dealing with’
Emma Roche was born in July with two cataracts over her eyes. Paediatric ophthalmologists immediately told her parents, Karen and Conor, that it was vital that an operation to remove them took place within three months of birth or else she could lose her vision permanently.
The cataract on her left eye was removed on October 14 at Cork University Hospital using a stationary microscopic lens machine at theatre four and the second operation on her right eye was scheduled for November 11. But just six days beforehand, their paediatric ophthalmologist, Gerry O’Connor contacted the Roche family to say that he had just been told that due to the reconfiguration of breast cancer services at CUH, theatre four had been closed. He could not say when the operation would take place.
