CUH eye patients ‘risk losing sight’ over delays

Eye patients attending Cork University Hospital risk losing vision “permanently and irreversibly” because of appointment delays, according to all five of the hospital’s ophthalmic surgeons.

In a letter to the hospital’s risk manager, Margaret Crowley, seen by the Irish Examiner, the surgeons warn the hospital “must accept full responsibility for any adverse consequences” to patients, as a result of failure to adequately resource the doctors to “to deliver the service demanded of us”.

The doctors warn that as a result of inadequate capacity, patient appointments are being delayed “beyond what is clinically recommended”.