NCBI’s Meeting with Minister for Health
In June, NCBI met with Dr. James Reilly, Minister for Health, to discuss the priorities for eye health and the importance of developing a national vision strategy, which VISPA (Vision Impaired Service Providers Alliance) has been working on for the last three years.
Des Kenny, Chief Executive; Elaine Howley, Director of Services and Professor
Colm O’Brien, Consultant Ophthalmologist at the Mater Hospital had a positive
meeting with Minister Reilly, during which he agreed to progress the National Vision Strategy.
Dr. Reilly also undertook to positively consider the request for the HSE to
provide a clinical lead in ophthalmology. NCBI and the Irish College of
Ophthalmologists had been pursuing this for some time as a means of driving any
meaningful new strategy in eye health. As an outcome from the meeting, we understand that the HSE is working through its clinical pathways towards ensuring a more seamless patient experience for people suffering with eye conditions. The delegation was able to tell the minister that an 18-month delay in cataract operations was resulting in the cause of unnecessary temporary blindness and major anxiety for very many patients with operable cataracts.
Cuts to Household Benefits Package
NCBI has written to Minister for Social Protection, Joan Burton, expressing our disappointment at the cuts to the Household Benefits package, which were announced in July. These cuts to gas, electricity and landline telephone benefits, will have an adverse effect on people with sight loss, who already face the additional living costs associated with having a disability. The cuts
will be especially detrimental to older people who are blind or vision impaired.
AMD Awareness Week
NCBI will mark AMD Awareness Week (agerelated macular degeneration) from 17th – 25th September 2011, in partnership with Novartis, Fighting Blindness, the Irish College of Ophthalmologists and the Association of Optometrists.
RTÉ’s Mary Kennedy will once again front the campaign, which will also see
a mobile AMD testing unit tour the country. Up-to-date information will be available on www.ncbi.ie and www.amd.ie nearer the time of the event.
Vision Week 2011
The second national Vision Week will take place from 9th – 16th October. An initiative of the four members of VISPA – NCBI, Fighting Blindness, St. Joseph’s Centre for the Visually Impaired and Irish Guide Dogs – Vision Week
is an opportunity to bring the issues facing people with vision impairments to the forefront and to also highlight the importance of eye health.
Details for Vision Week 2011 have not been finalised at the time of going to print so please keep an eye on www.ncbi.ie and www.visionweek.ie for further information.
Update on Children’s Conference, October 2011
A conference aimed at parents of children with vision impairments, entitled Skills for Success: Parenting Children with Vision Impairment, will take place in Dublin and Galway in October. On Saturday 1st October the conference will take place at the Red Cow Moran Hotel, Naas Rd. Dublin 22 and will be in the Clayton Hotel, Ballybrit, Galway on Sunday 2nd October. The conference will run from 9.30am to 5.30pm each day.
People attending will be required to register in advance for their preferred venue. While every effort will be made to facilitate individual preferences of venue this cannot be guaranteed as numbers are limited. Registration forms are available on our website www.ncbi.ie. A fee of €20 applies to secure registration. Lunch will be provided.
All audio guitar course from Albert Niland
Singer/songwriter Albert Niland has developed an all-audio guitar course for people who are blind or vision impaired. The 35-lesson course is designed for complete beginners. Participants rely solely on the audio so no other aids are needed. This course is available on CD and is free of charge to people who are blind or vision impaired. For more information email nilandmusic@yahoo.com.
Albert Niland is an Irish singer-songwriter and guitarist from Galway. He spent several years honing his craft in San Francisco in the late 1990s before returning to Ireland. In 2000 he landed a prestigious gig with the Riverdance show as flamenco guitar soloist and toured the world with Riverdance over the next three years.
After leaving the show in 2003 he released his debut Irish CD Dirty Day. He has performed on numerous TV and radio shows, one memorable performance being his acoustic cover of Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights played on Tom Dunne’s show Petsounds on Today FM. The song is still in the top 100 download charts four years later. Albert is touring in France at present, to rave reviews.
EU regulation on food information
The European Parliament has adopted a regulation on food information to customers. Although the regulation does not contain an explicit reference to people who are blind or vision impaired, it is noteworthy in that it lays down a definition of legibility: “the physical appearance of information, by means of which the information is visually accessible to the general population and which is determined by various elements, inter alia font size, letter spacing, spacing between lines, stroke width, type colour, typeface, width-height ratio of the letters, the surface of the material and significant contrast between the print and the background.”
The regulation also states that mandatory food information shall be marked in a conspicuous place in such a way as to be easily visible, clearly legible and, where appropriate, indelible. It shall not in any way be hidden, obscured, detracted from or interrupted by any other written or pictorial matter or any other intervening material. There is also a requirement for a minimum font size on packaging and labels to ensure clear legibility for consumers.