Eye On Wales: Monday 26 February
The price of sight
Monday 26 February at 6.03pm
(repeated Sunday 4 March at 6.31am)
Elderly eye patients in Wales are paying up to £2,000 a month for sight-saving injections while the NHS waits for guidance on using a new generation of drugs.
Every year, 1000 people in Wales are diagnosed with Wet Age-Related Macular Degeneration. If not treated quickly, it leads to the loss of central vision. If both eyes are affected it means registered blindness.
Until last year, most cases of Wet AMD were untreatable. The emergence of new drug therapies now offers hope for 90% of patients.
But, the NHS in Wales is struggling to keep up with the pace of change.
That means some sufferers have racked up bills of over £12,000 while waiting for a final ruling on how best to use the drugs, even though Wales' local health boards have been told that they are able to fund the treatments.
This week's Eye on Wales speaks to Wet AMD sufferers who are digging deep to save their sight, and asks if their future will be clearer anytime soon.
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