After nearly two years of hard work by our fundraisers, and the extraordinary generosity of the people of Wirral, we have reached our target of £150,000 to buy the wonderful EYESI surgical simulator for Arrowe Park Hospital’s Eye Department.

 

It fulfils our dream to be one of the first units in the country to have this marvellous technology – and junior surgeons will now be able to train in cataract and retinal (back of eye) surgery in the safe environment of virtual reality.


One of the senior members of the Eye Team, Mr Mark Watts, is the Royal College of Ophthalmologists’ national lead on training and leads the training of our young surgeons at Arrowe.

 

His delight at this wonderful achievement is clear: "I can honestly say that in the 18 years we have worked at Arrowe we have never come across such amazing generosity from the public and patients and I can not find words to express our gratitude both to them and to the tireless fundraisers who worked so hard to drive this forward and raise an extraordinary £150,000 in less than two years. 

 

“We already are using the cataract simulator on a daily basis to train our junior surgeons and now the addition of the new equipment and software to allow us to train in retinal surgery as well will really put us at the forefront of eye care nationally.

 

“Thank you to every person who donated money, goods or time to the EYESI. Your generosity has helped us save the sight of many people in Wirral."

 

But the fundraising won’t stop here... 

 

Eye problems mostly are associated with age, and Wirral has a very high proportion of older people who need the very best possible eye team near them, protecting their vision when problems arise.

 

The Arrowe Park Eye Team still has a shopping list of equipment they want, to keep them at the very peak of their specialism. If you would like to join the Forsight team and help raise money to support this crucial work - do get in touch.