Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I do not have knowledge at the level of individual hospitals but I will certainly check that matter out. I will check the issue of them going to community medical ophthalmologists first before going to surgeons but it may well turn out to be the case that the surgeons are not happy to operate on a patient they have not seen. Often surgeons will want to see the patient before they operate on him or her. This has arisen in a number of cases where patients have been outsourced to a private surgeon who had never seen them before in his or her clinic. There is a clinical risk in that, so there may well be a reason for it.

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