By Alun Jones
BBC Wales
Image supply, JANET HARRIS
Image caption, Janet Harris: “I place my quit my left locate and realised I could possibly not plan a ingredient”
An 80-365 days-frail lady has acknowledged she misplaced her demand in one locate after her traditional successfully being facility locate sanatorium appointments were cancelled at some stage in the Covid pandemic.
Janet Harris acknowledged: “I enact blame the successfully being board because they ought to have carried on with the appointments.
“It be dreadful to reflect they’ll also just have saved my demand.”
Cardiff and Vale University Health Board acknowledged it worked to invent sure patients “were receiving the appropriate level of care required for their situation”.
Mrs Harris acknowledged that in 2019 she attended three appointments to video display her locate stress on the locate unit on the University Clinical institution of Wales, Cardiff.
She acknowledged she didn’t have one other appointment until December 2021, after she notified the locate unit regarding the primary exchange in her imaginative and prescient.
“I place my quit my left locate and realised I could possibly not plan a ingredient,” she acknowledged.
‘I came out of there crying’
Following exams on the successfully being facility in the week earlier than Christmas, “they confirmed what I already knew, that I could possibly not plan from my appropriate locate”.
“I could possibly not give it some idea when they acknowledged they would possibly possibly possibly not enact the leisure to effect my demand. I came out of there crying.”
Mrs Harris acknowledged she believes that had the appointments continued at some stage in the pandemic, “they would possibly possibly have considered it getting worse and would were ready to enact something”.
Image supply, Mick Lobb/Geograph
Image caption, Mrs Harris used to be a affected person on the locate unit in the University Clinical institution of Wales in Cardiff
BBC Wales has considered a letter from a advisor ophthalmic surgeon, dated February 2022, declaring: “I was sorry to peep that you have gotten misplaced the imaginative and prescient in the correct locate, however equally overjoyed that your left locate continues to enact successfully.”
Mrs Harris, who has lived in the Grangetown space of Cardiff all her lifestyles, described 2021 as a “cruel 365 days, when all the pieces piled up” – in March she misplaced her husband Kenneth, frail 81, after 59 years of marriage.
But she added: “I’ve received four teenagers, 10 grandchildren, 9 good-grandchildren, and finest one locate. I’ve received to study out to shaggy dog memoir about it.”
Image supply, JANET HARRIS
Image caption, Janet and Kenneth Harris were married for 59 years
Nonetheless, she acknowledged she restful suffers from “thumping fret on the attend of my head as a consequence of stress” and the inability of peripheral imaginative and prescient to her appropriate locate “makes lifestyles extra hard”.
‘Safe and efficient care’
A spokesperson for Cardiff and Vale University Health Board acknowledged: “To invent sure our groups can also continue to bid stable and efficient care to patients at some stage finally of the pandemic and in accordance with Covid-19 steerage, some scheduled clinics and treatments were working at diminished ability and in some cases, affected person appointments were postponed.
“Measures were place in space by the successfully being board to relief continuity of care together with offering digital appointments, working intently with our colleagues in primary care to continue a have to have products and companies and rescheduling appointments for a later date.
“We worked in collaboration with our patients to invent sure they were receiving the appropriate level of care required for their situation, in accordance with need.
“As a successfully being board, we would traipse somebody who identifies a deterioration of their situation to keep in touch to their healthcare provider, even in the occasion that they are on a ready listing.
“Your primary care crew would possibly possibly be found inside the neighborhood and would possibly possibly provide advice, steerage and make stronger on a unfold of successfully being prerequisites, together with optometrists who would possibly possibly be your primary different for any deterioration in locate successfully being.
“We are sorry to hear that Mrs Harris feels that she has no longer received the appropriate care and we’d portray her to contact our considerations department if she wish to discuss about this extra.”