THREE years after having the laser eye surgery that she was told would transform her sight, Barbara Dick learnt this month that she will have to endure pain and discomfort caused by the operation for the rest of her life.
Mrs Dick, of East Kilbride, has seen six different ophthalmologists since undergoing two laser eye operations for short-sightedness at Boots clinics in 2001. She now relies on five doses of eye drops a day to relieve the nagging pain caused by extreme dryness in her right eye.
Mrs Dick has not commenced legal proceedings over her eye problems, which are believed to have been caused by foreign debris that found its way under a flap cut in her cornea during the laser procedure.
Mrs Dick, 56, said that she and her husband Alan, a former Provost of South Lanarkshire, decided that she should have the Boots operation — costing £1,200 per eye — after hearing of its technological expertise.
“I was told my vision would be transformed, that I could throw away my glasses for ever,” Mrs Dick, who works as a tutor for young offenders, said. “Six months later I was having to wear them more than I ever did before. I was in constant discomfort because my eye is so dry. I ended up seeing different doctors every day. Three years on and the problem is ongoing. It hasn’t gone away and it hasn’t got any better.”
Advertisement
After seeing a specialist at Manchester Royal Eye Hospital, Mrs Dick was told last week that the damage she had suffered could not be corrected. She now wears bifocal glasses most of the time.
While Mrs Dick’s case is rare, complaints against the laser eye surgery industry have grown in recent years. According to the Medical Defence Union, Britain’s largest insurer of doctors, cases against laser eye surgeons have almost tripled in six years.
The Dicks have decided not to pursue legal action for fear that they would lose even more money after the surgery and consultations. They have taken the case to their MEP, who is pushing for greater safeguards in the European Parliament.