A man was forced to travel to Belfast for a cataract surgery after waiting two years to get treatment through the HSE.
78-year-old Thomas hopes to get a loan of €2,000 from the Cara Credit Union in Tralee for the cost of the treatment which will be later refunded by the HSE.
Thomas will be appearing on a new RTE documentary series The Borrowers which is about the Kerry credit union.
He was told that it would take six months to get an appointment with the HSE and a further six more before he could receive the treatment.
But Thomas, who is already blind in his left eye, was worried that the damage to his other eye might get worse.
He says in the documentary: “It’s a scandal in a way, isn’t it?
“But hopefully this now the fact I’m going north will help to highlight the situation too.”
The Borrowers will explore the stories behind people applying for loans and the loan officers who will either approve or reject these applications, the Irish Independent reports.
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Loan officer Maurice O’Donoghue has called the situation “very frustrating”.
He added: “We hear it in the news and we read it in the papers and then when you meet someone who’s going through it it suddenly drives it home.
“It drives it home. As good as this country is lads, there’s a lot of improvement needed.”
Thomas will be travelling to Northern Ireland along with other patients on a bus organised by the Healy Raes.
The first episode of the documentary will air on Tuesday night at 8.30 pm on RTE One.
