Under-eights sight at risk in later life if parents shun eye tests

According to a report in the UK newspaper, The Guardian, there may be as many as a million children with an undetected vision defect due to around 70% of schools not providing eye screening. The paper’s website quotes Optometrist’s chief executive, Bob Hughes, as saying the situation was nothing short of “an absolute public health disgrace.

“There are problems which can be corrected in young people's eyes and yet it's a buried issue, an unknown issue, that children are losing out on a good education because they can't see.” He was recorded as saying that in extreme cases there were even cases of people going blind because refractive problems were not picked up.

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