VIDEO: Postcode lottery 'puts pensioner's life at risk'

A CARER who has been refused an eye operation fears she may accidentally kill her husband because she struggles to read his prescriptions.

Bernice Cowles, 80, helps to give up to 20 tablets a day to her husband Murray, 81, who suffers from Parkinson's disease.

But Mrs Cowles, of Chafford Gardens, West Horndon, has been refused surgery on her cataracts and now worries that she is a risk to the father of her three children.

"It's important that I can read his prescriptions correctly," said Mrs Cowles, who is particularly affected in her left eye.

"I could read he needs 13 of a certain tablet rather than three. These things run through your mind.

"If the other eye goes what then? At my age you never can tell what might go next."

Her cataracts began to develop last summer, but at a routine optician's appointment in January she was told the problem needed to be addressed before she could be given new glasses.

However, after being referred by her GP to Brentwood Community Hospital, the pensioner was told she could read enough letters on an eye chart and that she must wait another six months before being reassessed.

The criteria was set by the newly-formed Basildon and Brentwood Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and, as such, can be different depending on the area of the country in which you live.

"It seems to be that nasty postcode lottery business," said Mrs Cowles.

"I just saw too many letters below the set line.

"I struggled with it, but of course you do your best at the time, although it was a real struggle on the last line.

"I'd like them to assess me not just on what I can see but what I have to do. It should be taken into consideration."

"It's not as if I particularly want to have it done. It's not something I'd look forward to. But it is necessary – I need to have it done.

"I don't want to jump queues, I just want to get on the waiting list.

"It would give me peace of mind and mean that I won't have to worry so much about the future."

The progressive neurological condition that former Royal and Merchant Navy seaman Mr Cowles suffers from means that he struggles to take the required prescriptions himself.

He said: "To lose the vital support my wife gives me would be unthinkable. At the very best I would have to have strangers administering my medication."

In worry the couple turned to Brentwood and Ongar MP Eric Pickles to highlight their cause.

Mr Pickles wrote to the CCG and Mrs Cowles has now been offered the chance to apply for funding to have her cataracts removed.

However, the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) believes this is not satisfactory, as she may have to wait for up to a year and there are no guarantees she will get an operation.

Clara Eaglen, RNIB eye health campaigns manager, said: "We believe that the eligibility criteria used by Basildon and Brentwood CCG is in breach of guidance issued by the Royal College of Ophthalmologists and should be immediately withdrawn.

"Everyone with a sight-threatening condition deserves early access to treatments that will delay or halt sight loss.

"People like Mrs Cowles should not have to live with a reduced quality of life simply because commissioners are using arbitrary criteria to determine whether they get to keep their sight."

The Gazette approached the Basildon and Brentwood CCG for a comment, but it had not responded at the time of going to press.