The erasure of Honey Rose from General Optical Council registers last week marks the beginning of the end of a 10-year ordeal for the Barker family following the death of their eight-year-old boy, Vinnie, in 2012.
For the first time, the locum optometrist who missed the bilateral papilloedema at a sight test in February of 2012, has gone on record to apologise for her part in Vinnie’s death. I’ve no doubt it will be of little consequence to the Barker family, but Rose’s acknowledgement of her failings that day is an admission that should have been made years ago.
It’s hard to feel sympathy for anyone other than the Barker family in this tragic case, but I wonder if the length of time she waited to make an apology was down to her, or advice she had received from her counsel.
There will be more to come out in the wash from this case, but several of the protagonists should take a look at themselves and ask whether more could have been done to prevent the events from taking place on February 15, 2012, and whether more could have been done to prevent the Barker family from going through the wringer for a decade.
The Barkers say they have never wanted to damage the reputation of optometry. In fact, they now hold optometry in higher regard than any other medical profession’s regular public health checks, such is the information they have soaked up. I find this commendable, given how Honey Rose and her employer let them down.
It’s also commendable that they said they had wanted to share their experience with the organisers of National Eye Health Week (NEHW) to promote the work of the profession and the positives of optometry, but sad to learn that internal politics and funding prevented them from doing so. I think the profession owes the Barker family a good crack at participation in NEHW from September 19-25.