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As glamorous as her famous alter ego Patsy Stone – albeit it in a rather less racy way – Joanna Lumley creates a stir as she wanders through a clinic in the slums of Bangladesh, though few know who she is. The Bafta-winning actress, now as well known for her ceaseless campaigning and charity commitments as for her iconic TV roles, sits chatting, hugging women waiting for an eye test and laughing with staff.
She is here as ambassador for international sight-saving charity Seeing Is Believing to highlight the desperate need for eye care in one of the world’s poorest countries, where adults and children are blind because they don’t have access to the treatment we take for granted in Britain.
They desperately need more funds to help give more medical care.
But the plight of patients at this modest clinic shows in stark relief just how important it is to keep a close check on our own eyes.
The Department of Health recommends seeing an optometrist at least every two years, even if you’re lucky enough to have 20:20 vision, to make sure you aren’t suffering a preventable problem that can cause sight loss.
Yet a recent report by RNIB (Royal National Institute of Blind People) found that two million people in the UK put their sight in jeopardy because they fail to have a regular eye test.
Tests can also pick up a host of other potentially life-threatening illnesses, from diabetes to brain tumours.
‘It’s absolutely vital that we look after our vision,’ says Joanna, 67. ‘When you’ve got everything and can see fine, you just assume that’s how it is and how it will be.
‘But working with Seeing Is Believing, I have met so many people who are suffering because they don’t have good eye healthcare.’
Most sight loss is caused by refractive error, which can be improved with glasses, or cataracts, which can be fixed with a simple operation.
On a mission: Joanna visits an eye clinic in Bangladesh during her trip to the country to highlight the poor eye care in the country
Yet 285 million people worldwide are visually impaired, and while 90 per cent of them live in developing countries, almost two million are in Britain. That number is set to double by 2050, due not just to the ageing population but to the increased prevalence of obesity and diabetes, both of which are underlying causes.
And while Britons have the means and funds to treat eye conditions, they are diagnosed only through an eye test – which people often overlook. As a result, many older people, in whom two-thirds of sight loss is treatable, are enduring unnecessary blindness.
‘As you get older, a lot of people become more timid about asking for help in case it makes them look vulnerable,’ says Joanna.
‘But it is vitally important that if you think you have sight issues, you get it sorted. If you think you have a cataract you shouldn’t wait as it will only get worse. People must not be afraid of cataracts – I have watched the operation performed in Bangladesh and it is 100 per cent successful, incredibly quick and painless.’
Through her work with the charity, Joanna has witnessed the extraordinary difference these 15-minute procedures make to people’s lives. When she was last in Bangladesh eight years ago, she removed bandages from a formerly blind boy called Arif, then five. On this trip, she met him again and he is now excelling at school.
‘What really strikes me about sight loss is that there is nothing else you can heal so easily for so little money – yet it changes the whole trajectory of a human life,’ she says. ‘Before, Arif was blind with bilateral cataracts, and now he’s just a normal kid in class. Another woman, Shefali, runs a vegetable business and would have lost her livelihood without cataract surgery.’
Iconic: Joanna with her Absolutely Fabulous co-stars Jennifer Saunders, Julia Sawalha and Jane Horrocks
Joanna knows herself how easily sight problems are resolved in Britain, as she wears reading glasses bought in the high street and, as a pensioner, receives free eye tests. She realised her need for glasses at the age of 53. Travelling to see friends in North London, she found herself unable to read a map.
‘I pulled out my A-Z to find their street but the road names were in such tiny print I couldn’t read them. I had to go into a local pub and ask them to find the road on the map and give me directions.
‘I went straight round to Boots and bought some reading glasses. I buy them off the shelf and have pairs stacked around the house everywhere as I hate the idea of not being able to read a newspaper.’
Here she is pictured in her glasses for the first time, as she wears them only for reading – and she has little sympathy for anyone whose vanity prevents them wearing glasses.
‘I live in a first-world country where I can go into a shop and buy glasses and that makes me incredibly lucky. And there’s no stigma – John Lennon and Buddy Holly made wearing glasses cool. Those boys broke the stigma for kids with bad vision and that kind of bullying has gone away.’
Joanna is also unfazed by reading glasses indicating her increasing age. ‘When I was 20, I was longing to be 30, and when I was 30 I wanted to be 50. I’ve always longed for it as it makes you wiser, so I’ve never minded ageing.
‘Ageing doesn’t trouble me a bit – it means you’ve lived your life.’
Joanna adds: ‘In Britain, we have access to the best of everything: clean water, plentiful supplies, healthcare for all.
‘In a country like Bangladesh, where they’d give anything to have those things, it seems particularly bitter that we might take it for granted.’
To donate to Seeing Is Believing, visit seeingisbelieving.org. All donations are matched by Standard Chartered Bank.
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