TORONTO - Canada urgently needs a national plan to deal with the ever-increasing burden of serious vision loss, says a report by the CNIB and the Canadian Ophthalmological Society.

The report, released Tuesday, estimates the annual price tag for vision loss in Canada at $15.8 billion: $8.6 billion in direct health-related costs and $7.2 billion in indirect costs, including lost earnings, rehabilitation and assistive devices.

That yearly cost is expected to at least double in the next 10 to 20 years as baby boomers reach their senior years and are at greater risk for such vision-stealing diseases as age-related macular degeneration, glaucoma and cataracts.

"The Canadian government needs to develop and implement a comprehensive vision health plan now," said John Rafferty, CNIB president and CEO. "Some interim measures have been taken, but we literally can't afford to wait any longer."

"Every year we wait, more than 45,000 Canadians lose their vision," he said. "Every year that goes by costs Canadians $15.8 billion."

Canada made a commitment in 2003 to the World Health Organization to develop a national vision plan by 2005 and to begin implementing it by 2007, but to date no such plan exists, Rafferty said.

About 75 per cent of vision loss could be avoided with preventive measures or corrected with access to proven treatments, he said. But the lack of a national plan means vision care is often parcelled out in different ways by individual provinces and territories.

"This is where the health-care system starts to split and we see regional disadvantages cropping up," said Dr. Alan Cruess, head of ophthalmology at Dalhousie University in Halifax.

Indigenous Canadians, who have elevated rates of diabetes that carries a high risk of vision loss, are often poorly served by the health-care system, said Cruess, citing one example.

He said a national vision plan "would clearly have to increase access to care through a collaborative model of care. We should be utilizing the best technology to screen and detect disease or co-morbidities, for instance diabetes, at an earlier stage."

The report also put a dollar figure on the human toll associated with vision loss, calculating the amount at $11.7 billion a year. That would include lost productivity, loss of independence, social isolation and poverty.

"There are a lot of very big numbers (in the report)," Rafferty said. "The number that stands out most to me in terms of painting a picture of this is the fact that Canadians with vision loss who are of working age have an employment rate of 32 per cent."

Take, for instance, Alida Miletic of Toronto. Almost five years ago, she was working in the retail fashion industry when she noticed a slight change in her peripheral vision. Because she had no pain, she put it down to lack of sleep and a busy lifestyle.

By the time she was diagnosed -- with glaucoma -- it was too late to stop her vision from deteriorating. Miletic, who was forced to leave a job she loved and live on provincial and CPP disability payments, sank into a two-year depression and refused to leave the house.

Now 45, Miletic is learning through the CNIB to use a computer with adaptive technology and to master specialized devices to make her less dependent on family and friends. She dreams of returning to school to train for a new job.

Rafferty said more than half of Canadians with severely impaired or lost eyesight live on less than $20,000 a year from social assistance -- below the poverty line. Yet with rehabilitation and assistive devices, many could lead productive, independent lives.

"We know of thousands, tens of thousands of Canadians who are blind or have vision loss that are very, very productive and brilliant business leaders and academic leaders across the country."

As part of a national vision plan, the CNIB wants the federal government to:

  • Establish a vision health policy directorate through the Public Health Agency of Canada to lower vision-loss rates using a strategy similar to that to encourage smoking cessation.
  • Expand the Wait Time Initiative to include treatment for all eye conditions (not only cataracts) and ensure adequate training of medical and rehabilitation professionals.
  • Increase funding for a nationwide employment program to help working-age people with vision loss to obtain good jobs.
  • Support a national assistive devices program to give people with vision loss the tools to thrive in work and other pursuits.