icWirral - Ground-breaking eye op gives Edith new hope

"A GREAT grandmother from Wallasey who has been facing up to blindness can look forward to the future after revolutionary surgery.

Edith Parry, 82, has become one of the first people in the UK to have a “telescope” fitted inside her eye.

The revolutionary “Intraocular lens for Visually Impaired People” (IOL VIP) operation is the latest success for Heswall’s Som Prasad, who is now only the second man in the UK to have performed it.

Unlike the cataract procedure, which sees one lens inserted into the eye, two lenses are fitted, one behind the iris and one in front, making a classic “Galilean” telescope.

It is “angled” to direct the image to a healthy part of the macula, and on to the optic nerve and the brain."