Better eyecare access required

Four to five times a year, I travel to Winnipeg to escort my elderly mother from her personal care home to specialized eye appointments.

Each trip highlights the glaring disconnect between administrative convenience and patient reality, as her appointments are at a facility in the East Exchange, a location which poses an exhausting obstacle course for the very people who rely on it most — frail seniors and patients with severe visual impairment.

Reaching the facility is an ordeal in itself. Situated on a congested downtown street with virtually non-existent parking, families arriving with walkers and wheelchairs often find the sole accessible drop-off spot blocked by commercial delivery trucks. Worse, seniors navigating mobility issues or cognitive decline are too often met by rushed specialists who appear too overburdened to answer basic questions or explain critical diagnoses.

Our elders deserve dignity, not distress.

If Manitoba centralizes tertiary ophthalmology downtown, the province must also invest in decentralized alternatives. Why is there no robust mobile eye clinic visiting personal care homes and assisted-living facilities to assess seniors where they live?

Forcing our most vulnerable citizens — and the families who travel to support them — to run a downtown gauntlet just to preserve their eyesight is unacceptable, and our health-care system must address this gap.