'We’d be lost without our sight': Blind bus sets out for last trip before reduced reimbursement

Fourteen people from throughout Cork and Kerry travelled with relatives yesterday on a bus bound for Northern Ireland to get life transforming treatment to save their eyesight.

The trip comes before the September 1 deadline when a reduced reimbursement under the Cross Border Health scheme comes into effect.

On Sunday, a reimbursement of €1,173, rather than the €1,950 up to now, will be available to those availing of the scheme because of a determination by Health Pricing Office that the price for this operation has reduced generally.

However, Michael Collins, the Cork South West TD and Independent Ireland leader who has organised 165 trips for the treatment since 2017 has received no indication that the private hospital in Belfast to which he has been bringing patients will be reducing its prices.

Speaking after the bus had left – it was actually heading for Derry as the Belfast hospital it normally goes to, the Kingsbridge, has a sister hospital in that city, Mr Collins said that this was the tenth trip he had organised in the past two weeks in advance of the deadline.

“Why should people here in Cork have to wait for up to four or five years to get it [the operation] carried out?

“In the absence of the service locally, they have to travel to Belfast and get the treatment there and get reimbursed but now the reimbursement is being reduced – it will cost them €1,700 extra to get the cataracts done on both eyes as a result,” he claimed.

Vera Murphy from Clonakilty was travelling on the bus to get a second eye done, having had the first eye operated on last year. “I did have a seriously ill husband and we buried him two weeks ago, that was hard but all this was made easier for me,” she said, expressing her thanks to the Cork South West TD.

“We’d be lost without our sight, when you’re getting older, you need someone to help with organising this,” she said.

May Cummins from The Lough was also on the bus and she told The Echo that she had had one eye done and was looking to get the other eye done before the current reimbursement ran out. “I’m very angry, there are many people who haven’t got the money, why should they suffer?

“A lot of people are going to lose their sight because of this.” 

Denis Hegarty from Glanmire was travelling with his son. He was hopeful that he’d be going back soon to get the second eye done while Patrick O’Regan from Youghal was anxious to get the operation so he could enjoy going to hurling matches again. Seán O'Regan from Goleen said that all he could see at present was a blur and that he would be going to Belfast in a few weeks to get the second cataract operation.