"My daughter was going blind"

IN mid September 2015 my daughter complained to me mummy my eye is blurry in the corner. Ok I said lets see how you go. 2 days later the blur had traveled halfway across her eye and I was very concerned so contacted our local optician who gave me the number for the emergency eye clinic.

We got an appointment for the same day and took my daughter straight away. Upon arrival they tried to test her sight but she could not see the letters so they passed her to the pediatric dept for them to have a go. The lady we saw was very nice but after several attempts to get my daughter to read the letters and asking her to " try a bit harder " she seemed to be getting a bit irate. My daughter could not see the letters - she was losing her sight very quickly.

We then saw a doctor that looked into my daughters eyes and told us she had cataracts.

We took my daughter home to wait for her consultant appointment. A week later we returned for her appointment to be told it had been cancelled but we had not been informed and were assured that we would hear from them on Monday. So Monday comes and by now my daughters sight has deteriorated and she cannot see anything at all. I ring the emergency eye dept to ask when her appointment will be to be told it could take a couple of weeks before she is seen. I voice my concerns that my daughter cannot see and is no longer safe to be at school to be told by the receptionist that the waiting time for cataract operations is a few months and not classed as important so I should make her go to school because I will get into trouble for keeping her off.

This is where my moaning ends because from here on in the team that dealt with my daughter were absolutely brilliant but I believe the emergency eye dept has got issues. We saw a lovely doctor that looked into my daughters eyes and realised how bad her sight had gotten. The doctor gave me a consultant appt for 2 days later. So 2 days later we go to see the consultant and the consultant books my daughter in for her first surgery for the next week with her second surgery the week after.

My daughter had a lot of inflammation in her right eye. The consultant moved people on her list to get her in ASAP. We were also passed on to the cau for blood tests and a thorough check over to make sure there no obvious causes for my daughters sight loss that may affect her operation.

The team at cau were brilliant with her talking her through everything because she couldn't see what they were doing. So we just had the second surgery 2 days ago and my daughter has sight in both her eyes again. The team on ward 218 were fantastic and were so happy when they saw her the week after with one good eye. They made us feel she was special and not just a hospital number.

The eye care team are wonderful kind and helpful people and I am so pleased that everything went well that I cannot thank them enough.

The aftercare has been brilliant with her being seen twice in one day at one point. as for the emergency eye dept ... Well I think they need to get their act together and not give out "advice " when i feel they are not qualified to do so.