Simon Jones: Don’t just tell patients to chillax

I recently sat down with Macular Society chief executive Cathy Yelf to talk about how the charity had been forced to tackle the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic and how she wanted to increase awareness of the work it carries out. After hearing how one optometrist told a patient they had age-related macular degeneration (AMD), I feel obliged to help the charity in its cause.

The impact of being diagnosed with AMD is something that doesn’t require too much imagination. Simply put, it would be devastating. So upon hearing from Cathy about an optometrist that told their patient to ‘chillax’ about their just-diagnosed AMD, I was astonished and angry that such a massive moment could be dealt with so flippantly.