‘I could have gone blind if I hadn’t been able to go private’
When her sight started to blur in one eye, Marianne Jones wasn’t too worried – but what happened next was terrifying and exposes the broken state of an NHS system failing millions of patients every day
It was three days before my silver wedding anniversary holiday that I booked an optician’s appointment to check out my suddenly blurry right eye.
For days previously, all I could see were wavy lines, distorted faces and floating blobs. I’ve been extremely short-sighted since I was a teenager (my nickname is Mr Magoo) and have check-ups more regularly than most. So, I was concerned but not overly so, putting my eye problems down to the strain of staring at the computer for too long. Still, I wanted to put my mind at rest before heading off for a 12-hour flight to Mauritius, for a celebration we’d saved long and hard for.
I hadn’t planned for the potential dire consequences of my symptoms, or the very British drama that came next. One hour later, on a Friday afternoon, the optician studied a scan of my problematic eye and declared I needed emergency treatment for what appeared to be fluid leaking into my retina.
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