The Fred Hollows Foundation and partners have recently added to the more than 500 sight-saving operations through a program undertaken in Central Australia.
The recent week-long intensive surgery session saw 38 people receive eye surgery in Alice Springs, while a total of 41 other procedures on patients in that time took the full number of operations performed under the Central Australia program to 512.
OPTALERT and a range of other supporters make regular financial donations to The Foundation, which has already restored sight to well over one million people.
The Foundation’s Angus Thornton says the Central Australia program has been a great success, when you consider the challenges involved in bringing integrated health services to one of the largest geographic catchment areas in the world.
Aboriginal people are six times more likely than non-Aboriginal Australians to become blinded by eye disease. The eye intensive was the tenth conducted through the Central Australian Eye Health Program since 2007.
“Fred travelled all around Australia to give people in remote communities the eye services they needed, so I think he’d be very proud of this achievement,” Thornton says.
For more information visit www.hollows.org.au
Main picture by Barry Skipsey: Original custodian Reggie Uluru, was one of 38 patients to have sight restoring surgery in Alice Springs.
Inspired by the work of the late Professor Fred Hollows, The Foundation now carries on his work in more than 20 countries around the world, working to restore or improve sight among underprivileged communities in pursuit of Professor Hollows’ vision of a world where no one is needlessly blind.