Patricia Gleeson first noticed something was wrong when she started having trouble focusing on the road while driving home late at night.
A comprehensive eye exam revealed the 79-year-old had cataracts.
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Waiting to see
Patricia Gleeson waited two years for her cataract surgery, risking falls and depression.
Over the next two years of doctor referrals, waiting lists and operations, Ms Gleeson could see through only one blurry eye at a time.
Ms Gleeson waited months to see the ophthalmology specialist. It took another year before she was wheeled into the operating room.
![Patricia Gleeson at her Northmead home.](/web/20161204170043im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/2/r/7/t/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gt1rft.png/1480655019922.jpg)
"The worst thing was waiting for the letter to come, telling me when I would have the surgery," Ms Gleeson said.
She fell five or six times while she waited.
"I'm not sure if they're related, but I know one fall I tripped because I couldn't see while crossing the road," Ms Gleeson.
"My good eye got progressively worse after the first operation. Everything was a bit fuzzy and I was very wobbly," the Northmead grandmother said.
It was another eight months before she had her second operation on Monday.
"My eyesight deteriorated gradually, but it all started to affect me at once. Of course it's never just the one factor ... it all ads up," she said.
Ms Gleeson's doctor could tell she wasn't coping psychologically with her vision loss.
"I was a bit depressed, my doctor sent me to a psychotherapist and I was put on a very low dose of anti-depressants [sertraline], which I'm only just now going off," she said.
"Even though they gave me a pretty fair idea right from the start about the long wait time, doesn't mean there should be.
"I'm now on a full pension so I can't afford private cover. In the west [of Sydney] especially, you have a lot of people on low incomes who don't get a choice."
One in three people waiting for their first cataracts operation experience at least one fall, and almost 30 per cent with even modest levels of vision loss develop depressive symptoms, a study of 329 Australians published recently in the journal Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology showed.
"Almost half of all falls led to injuries, including 15 head injuries and two fractures," said lead researcher Anna Palagyi at the George Institute for Global Health.
"This has really given us clear evidence about the implications of waiting," Ms Palagyi said of the results, the first to show a link between poor vision and risk of falls.
"Even at those early modest levels you can get some differences in patients' quality of life because when an older person falls over they get a bit nervous, and they might be worried about falling in the future, which might then restrict what they do and they won't get out as much and participate in the community.
"Innovating in how we could better streamline services and make cataracts surgery available in an efficient manner would be an advantage for this population."
Cataract extraction was the most common surgical procedure from 2015 to 2016, with 67,755 admissions from public hospital wait lists, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reported.
While ophthalmology patients have the longest median wait time for surgery nationally, with 78 days, patients in NSW public hospitals have to wait up to 238 days.
This year alone, NSW accounted for almost 31 per cent of all elective surgery admissions.
According to a 2015-2016 Patient Experience Survey, 57 per cent of Australians have some form of private health insurance cover. But only 34 per cent of people living in areas of greatest disadvantage had private health insurance, compared to 77 per cent of people living in areas of least disadvantage.
The 2016 NSW population and household projections made by the Department of Planning and Environment show that NSW will grow to 9.9 million people by 2036.
Westmead Hospital is one of the busiest hospitals in the state and treats almost 65,000 patients annually, according to the hospital's general manager Andrew Newton.
"We are focused on improving the experience of patients, in the context of the rising demand for services throughout western Sydney as the population continues to grow," he said.