Recently had mine done, the improvement is dramatic.
Lengthy cataract surgery waits lead to more falls: new research
New research has found that the number of falls would drop if the wait for cataract surgery was capped at three months. Picture: AFP
Cataract surgery patients are waiting up to two and a half years to undergo the common eye procedure, delays which have been exacerbated due to elective surgery bans throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.
A new study claims that if the wait for surgery was capped at three months, over a three-year period it would result in 50,679 fewer falls, which can have devastating and even fatal consequences for older people.
Capping wait times for cataract surgery would also save millions for the health industry.
Avoiding the cost of treating those falls would save around $20m, resulting in an overall cost saving of $6.6 million, once the costs of bringing forward surgeries were included, according to findings published in Public Health Research & Practice, a journal of the Sax Institute.
Researcher Lisa Keay said a major problem was the inequity between people who could afford private healthcare, and those going through the public system who had to wait years for treatment.
The reason we were motivated to collect this research was to present the business case for why cataract surgeries should be brought forward, and draw attention to the inequities that are currently there, she said.
There are about 250,000 cataract surgeries performed annually in Australia, 70,000 of which rely on public hospitals.
Extended waits for treatment place patients at heightened risk of falls, car crashes and other ill effects, including social isolation.
These risks are more commonly felt by the 30 per cent of Australians who do not have private health insurance, cannot afford the out-of-pocket costs associated with private treatment and rely on public hospital services.
In a world plagued by Covid-19, where Australian public hospitals are under a severe strain, Professor Keay said investment in public cataract services was needed to address current unmet needs that would prevent avoidable vision impairment and associated negative consequences.
Investment could include the establishment of high-volume surgery services to increase capacity, as well as standardising referral and triage processes, fast-tracking of referrals when necessary, and prioritising surgery for Indigenous patients to reduce health inequities.
The problem is worse because of Covid, but what were trying to do and the timeliness of it now is thinking about the innovations weve seen throughout Covid and see if we can improve the public health system by using them, she said.
Weve put a hold on elective surgeries, but now hopefully were getting past that and can look towards these issues weve always had but have been exacerbated by the Covid crisis.
My parents have no private health insurance but they had their cataracts done privately for an out-of-pocket cost of approximately $2K per eye. What was your out-of-pocket cost?
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