A FORMER National Health Service physiotherapist and magistrate who dedicated more than three decades to public service has been told she must go blind in one eye before the NHS will pay for her treatment.

Pat Wood, 78, has been forced to spend her £14,000 savings on private medication after she was diagnosed with wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a condition that can lead to blindness within three months if not treated.

Wood is one of up to 19,000 patients with AMD who are being left to go blind because the NHS refuses to fund the drugs Lucentis, Macugen and Avastin to treat the disease, according the the Royal National Institute of the Blind.

Wood, from Sutton-on-the-Forest in North Yorkshire, was told by North Yorkshire and York Primary Care Trust it would pay for one of the drugs only if she goes blind in one eye and the disease then spreads to her other eye.

Wood said: “This is extremely distressing and frustrating. We have had to spend about £14,000 despite having paid towards the NHS all our lives. We have not been able to go on holiday because of the cost. We had hoped to go to Switzerland while I could still see it but we have had to drop those plans.”

Some primary care trusts fund the drugs when a patient suffers AMD in just one eye. Some trusts will only fund the drugs if the disease spreads to the other eye, while some areas will not fund the drugs at all.

Margaret Maslowska, 82, from Eastwood, near Nottingham, is blind in one eye and losing the sight in her second eye due to AMD. Nottinghamshire County Teaching Primary Care Trust is refusing to pay for the medication which could save her sight and she has so far had to spend £12,000 on private prescriptions.

Her daughter Sue said: “We do not know where we are going to keep finding the money. The options are you either go bust or you go blind.”

Lucentis and Macugen have both been licensed to treat AMD and are being assessed by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice), which is expected to issue guidance on their use by the NHS in October. Avastin, a bowel cancer drug, is cheaper but is not licensed for AMD.

Nottinghamshire County Teaching Primary Care Trust issued a statement saying: “We do not routinely provide treatment that is being investigated by Nice until the final appraisal is published.”

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