Cathy Huitson (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By Michael Reeve

HEALTHCARE GAP

Kamloops woman referred to Chilliwack for cataract surgery due to wheelchair

May 19, 2022 | 4:13 PM

KAMLOOPS — Kamloops resident Cathy Huitson wants to draw attention to a hole in the local medical system. Recently, Huitson was informed she would require cataract surgery. She expected the routine operation would be conducted locally at the Kamloops Surgical Centre — but that’s when a problem arose.

Huitson is wheelchair bound and is unable to independently transfer from her chair to the chair used in the operating room. That means she will be unable to receive her surgery here in Kamloops.

“They said it doesn’t matter, you have to be able to be mobile to get into their chair. In other words, if you get cataracts and are not mobile and are in a chair, (you’re out of luck). Since then I’ve written letters, and (my social worker) John has, to just about anybody we could think of that we think might make a change. I don’t know if it will or not, but we hope so,” said Huitson.

Due to the lack of an overhead lift, she has been referred to Chilliwack for the procedure. As Huitson currently resides in the Ridgeview Lodge she doesn’t have the means to travel down the highway not once but twice as both eyes are done separately.

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“How do you get down there? And don’t tell me I’m the first one to have this problem, this has happened before, it’s had to have, and it’s going to keep on happening. People are just not aware of it. It could be your mother or your daughter, wife, sister, brother, anybody could be in that case,” she said.

Huitson hopes by bringing attention to her struggle the next person may not have to face the same challenges.