Wangaratta resident Val Edwards has slowly been losing her vision after being diagnosed with cataracts in both eyes this time last year.
"My eyesight is continuing to degenerate," she said.
"It's not at a stage where I can't see, but things are a bit fuzzy, and the television is a bit dark."
After waiting a few months to see a surgeon, Ms Edwards was put on a waitlist for the elective surgery procedure.
But she never expected it to take this long.
"I've been on the waitlist since the beginning of May [2022], and that's for one eye," Ms Edwards said.
"Then I have to go on the waitlist again for the next eye, which will be another 12 months or so."
Ms Edwards said she was frustrated with the long wait times.
It is a sentiment shared by many others across the state who are in the same position.
There are more than 82,600 Victorians currently on a waitlist for elective surgery, according to new data released by the government.
It's only a slight improvement on the last quarter, when 84,228 people were waiting.
Ms Edwards said the wait and slow decline of her sight affected her emotional, psychological, and physical wellbeing.
It's also impacted her confidence.
"I'm really careful now about going out," Ms Edwards said.
"I used to catch buses to go to a lot of places, but I tend to trip over things sometimes, so I'm not going out as much as I was, which living alone is a bit of a concern for me.
"I don't want to become one of those ageing people that are scared to leave their home."
She said simple tasks like reading were a daily struggle, and she even had to use a magnifying glass to turn on or off the air conditioner and adjust the temperature.
COVID impacts
Rural Doctors Association of Victoria president Dan Wilson said the long wait times people were experiencing were predominantly due to the impacts of the pandemic.
He said COVID had "absolutely decimated" the productivity of the planned surgery sector.
"A lot of surgeries classified as non-urgent or non-life-threatening were put on hold, creating a complete standstill, but it's almost unfair to say that these surgeries are non-urgent," Dr Wilson said.
"They are absolutely urgent for the person that's waiting. They're just not threatening someone's life.
"To be nearly blind in one eye or to have debilitating daily pain and having to use high levels of really strong sedating painkillers, it doesn't seem like a sustainable way to be."
He said it was hard to say whether regional patients were waiting longer than those in metropolitan areas but that it would depend on the kind of surgery and the surgical facilities at those rural locations.
Private health insurance
Dr Wilson said people with private health insurance were often seen more quickly.
Ms Edwards was told by her ophthalmologist that if she had private health insurance, she would only have to wait about three weeks for the surgery and that both eyes would likely have been operated on at the same time or within a matter of weeks apart.
Ms Edwards said she was concerned vulnerable groups were being left behind.
"I think a large number of elderly people, and the homeless and single women who maybe can't afford [private health insurance] are suffering from the length of time on the waitlist," she said.
Dr Wilson said there were ways the government could progress the waitlist including, a more collaborative approach between private and public hospital partnerships.
"The large bulk of planned surgery occurs within private hospitals, whether that's from a private surgeon or not," he said.
"There needs to be a lot more forward planning, how to best utilise those services."
He said better utilising smaller rural health services by incentivising visiting surgeons to attend a centre and perform surgeries on local patients would also help.
The Victorian government has been contacted for comment.
