From my top service provider to the worse

My daughter Ghouwah Abrahams had specs made on her dads( M.S. Jacobs - Gems Med Aid) med aid in Dec 2018 at specsavers claremont. Recently she told me that she can't see though her specs anymore. Her school marks are dropping and she says her vision started blurring slightly from the 2nd school term. My 11yr old daughter has astigmatism and has worn specs since the age of 7yrs.

Her dad contacted specsaver's about the situation and was told for us to be at the store Sunday 4 Aug before store opening as not to interfere with the days appointments. We were there at about 9:30 only to be told by the on duty admin staff that they don't know about the arrangements and would have to pay if I wanted an appointment. I told them that I hadn't come with cash as it was just to check what went wrong with her lenses and not a full on test. I also explained the whole story again. In the end I had to call my ex husband who spoke to the admin staff and they said that they would relay the details to the on duty optician when he arrived.

The optician checked her specs and her vision(basic read the letters and which is clearer a or b.). The usual full on range of different machine checks they have done on all our previous visits was not done. This didn't bother me as we were told they would just be doing a quick check and then we would have feedback on the way forward. On our side this would also give us more information to aproach the medical aid with and request additional benefits as her spectacle allowance is obviously exhausted. All the staff we spoke to was made fully aware of this situation.

By Tuesday I called to specsavers and was told that my daughters situation was reviewed by the optician(s). She would need new glasses. I enquired if it could be done on the Kids right to sight programme as she is not yet 12yrs old. The lady I spoke to said definitely but I would have to pay cash for the Sunday eye test first. I told them that her dad had arranged for us to come through and there was not supposed to be a cost. She just blatantly told me they can't find the person he spoke to.

Last Tuesday we took my daughter to an opthalmologist for 2nd opinion as we got the impression that specsavers just wanted us to new specs made. We took the quote from specsavers claremont with us that had they lense script on which they wanted us to make. The opthamologist also requested my daughters past eye tests which was paid for, from specsavers claremont. I then recieved a call from Ricardo at specsavers to say that they would not be sending the information as i havent paid for the eye test done on Sunday 4Aug 2019. Only once paid will they release the information. I was beyond livid my daughter is busy failing her grade and needed to be tested for any eye condition which needed he past lens script to complete the diagnosis. Now specsavers was holding the info to ransom. I wanted to speak to the practice manager but he quickly changed his tone and said he would call me back. He called back and to say the info was sent to the opthalmologist.

We are working people and cannot afford new specs every 6months plus we both (parents)wear specs and found our daughters situation not normal. She has now tested as borderline for keratoconus and will tomorrow be tested by the opthalmologist again where we will given the correct script needed for her eyes.

I don't know what is happening at specsavers Claremont. Not sure if the admin staff is doing there own thing with my case or if its under the owners instructions. I hope its not on the owners instructions as I have always to everyone and referred many of my friends and family to them because of good they have been with my daughter before.

This whole experience is very emotional for us and the struggles my daughter is having because of sight. The interaction we have had with the admin staff has just made a difficult situation more unbearable.