Summary of Employment History since 1973^{see below}

Return to the top of this page

Return to the top of this page

MEDICAL DECLARATION

As of Thu, 05 Jan 2012 I have been on a Disability Support Pension (DSP) having, previous to that, been on Newstart Allowance, on and off, since late 2000. Under the DSP I am able to do voluntary work or voluntarily undertake part-time work for up to 12 hours per week.

My disability concerns my vision. I have been legally blind in my right eye since November 2008 when my ophthalmologist did an ultrasound on that eye after detecting an unexplanable drop in ocular pressure since the previous checkup. The ultrasound identified an inoperable detached retina in the right eye. I also have an apparently rare form of cataract on the right eye which it has been decided not to treat as it would do nothing for my vision in that eye due to the condition of the retina. I have been advised that the cataract on the right eye appears the way it does in the photos of it that I have due to the trauma of the retinal detachment.

Whilst the corrected distance vision, in my left eye, is fine my near vision is becoming more and more problematic, requiring additional magnification to aid general reading as well as computer use, neither of which can be sustained for long periods of time without the need for a break. There is also a cataract currently forming on this eye. I have, for some time now, had diplopia (double vision) in my good (left) eye but was only advised of the reason for this at my regular ophthalmic checkup of Mon, 01 Aug 2011. I am actually seeing one genuine image and two "ghost" images, rather than the one genuine and one ghost image as suggested by the classical definition. (Also see the Wikipedia page for diplopia.).

My condition is probably more correctly defined as follows:
triplopia [trip·lo·pi·a)
noun Ophthalmology
Condition in which a subject sees three images of a single object. This condition may be the result of
crystalline lens sclerosis, multiple pupils, etc.
[Millodot: Dictionary of Optometry and Visual Science, 7th edition. © 2009 Butterworth-Heinemann]
"http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/triplopia"

or probably even polyopia

As an interesting off shoot, I have a pair of Pentax "JUPITER" (9x20; 6.7°) binoculars (see images below). My primary TV is in my bedroom and my pillow is just on the minimum distance (ca 3.1m) from the TV screen to allow me to use my binoculars to enable me to read any text (eg weather reports, etc) and to make faces, etc, clearer. On my Vivo 40cm HDTV (LEDTV15HD | 16:9), I can see basically a 4:3 portion of the screen but much clearer than unaided.

Return to the top of this page

GLOSSARY OF SOME SELECTED ABBRVIATIONS

• CRS Australia - Commonwealth Rehabilitation Service
• VRS Australia - Vocational Rehabilitation Service
• DEN - Disability Employment Network
• DES - Disability Employment Service
• PCC - Pensioner Concessioner Card
• JCA - Job Capacity Assessment
• ESAts - Employment Services Assessments

Return to the top of this page

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Australia License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://pmyers.pcug.org.au/Copyright_Licence.htm