(Limerick East): Community ophthalmic services are provided free of charge by health boards to eligible persons. The persons eligible are pre-school and national school children, in respect of defects discovered at child health or school health examinations, and persons in eligibility Category I, medical card holders and their dependants.
Ophthalmic services are provided by health boards through hospitals and ophthalmologists directly employed by the boards or through the adult sight testing scheme. Under this scheme ophthalmologists, ophthalmic medical practitioners and ophthalmic opticians in private practice who have entered into agreement with the boards examine eligible patients in their private practice premises and provide spectacles as appropriate.
This year the health boards will spend over £6 million on the provision of community ophthalmic services. All the boards operate a system which affords priority to applicants with special needs, such as persons with medical conditions, and every effort is made to ensure that urgent cases are processed without delay.
As the Deputy will be aware, I made available an additional £750,000 this year to health boards for the provision of ophthalmic services to adults on their waiting lists. Allocations were made having regard to the information supplied to me by the boards in relation to waiting lists and other relevant factors. The additional moneys I have provided should result in about 15,000 medical card holders being removed from the waiting lists for sight testing services and supply of spectacles. While the provision of this special funding in 1995 will make a significant impact on services for medical card holders I am concerned to ensure that ophthalmic services are provided to medical card holders within a reasonable period of time. To this end my Department will continue to liaise with the health boards and the appropriate professional organisations with a view to developing the services further.