Colin's sight saving surgery was a UK 'first'

A BALLYMENA man played a leading role in a revolutionary eye surgery operation which aims to stop the march of the blinding illness, glaucoma.

In the first operation of its kind in the UK and Ireland, Consultant Colin Willoughby was part of a team of Surgeons at the Cathedral Eye Clinic in Belfast who fitted Mary McCall's eye with a device already being dubbed the ‘millimetre miracle.’

Mrs McCall, 66 from Belfast had been slowly losing her eyesight to the disease, which is responsible for causing blindness in more than 67 million people worldwide.

The iStent is a tiny piece of titanium weighing just 60 microgrammes - and is the smallest medical device ever to be implanted into the human body.

It drains fluid away, lowering eye pressure from a sensitive part at the back of the eye which causes the glaucoma illness.

Mr Willoughby is a former pupil of Ballykeel Primary and Cambridge House and lives in Ballymena working as the Consultant Ophthalmalmic Surgeon and Senior Lecturer at Queens University Belfast and the Belfast HSC Trust.

He has given many invited lectures and contributed to several scientific publications and books.

Mr WIlloughby's youngest child will be starting at Cambridge House this September.

Glaucoma is a progressive and irreversible illness caused when the optic nerve is damaged by a build-up of fluid. Patients begin to lose peripheral vision and can go blind. Mrs McCall will soon undergo the 15-minute procedure on her second eye.

Mr Willoughby said: "This is a massive step forward for the treatment of glaucoma and has the

potential to help so many people. We have now had time to assess Mrs McCall and we are delighted with the result."

Mrs McCall, a mother-of-six from Alliance Avenue in north Belfast, said: "The procedure has changed my life. My eyesight was getting worse and the procedure has stopped that. I would hate to go blind.

"Mr Willoughby was brilliant throughout. I went into hospital in the morning and I was home in time for lunch. Sure you couldn't beat that.

"The Cathedral Eye Clinic carried out the procedure for free and Mr Willoughby also removed a cataract in another operation, so that eye is brilliant now."