Photo courtesy of www.lannonharley.com

Delivering results in remote Australia

"My eyes made it difficult to paint but they are good now. When I go back home I'm going to sit down and make boomerangs and spears again." Patient Shorty Robertson, after successful cataract surgery.
Photo courtesy of The Fred Hollows Foundation
Dr Richard Mills tests the vision of Shorty Robertson, an 82-year-old traditional artist from the remote community of Yuendumu.

Earlier this year The Foundation kicked off the first stage of a project aiming to restore sight to hundreds of people living in remote Indigenous communities in Central Australia.

The project, known as the Central Australian Eye Health Program, is being run in partnership with the Eye Foundation, the Federal Government, the Northern Territory Government, and local Indigenous health organisations - Central Australian Aboriginal Congress and Anyinginyi Health Aboriginal Corporation.

The immediate aim of the program is to restore sight to approximately 300 people who need urgent surgery.

In the longer-term, it is hoped the Central Australian Eye Health Program will help put in place an eye health system that is capable of delivering ongoing service for a region that stretches over 1.6 million square kilometres and includes a population of approximately 55,000.

The distances involved make the initiative one of the largest integrated eye health projects in the world.

"This program is important because it will give us the focus and the resources we need to cut the waiting lists," says Chris Masters, Manager of the Central Australian Eye Health Program.

Conditions such as cataract are rarely blinding in other parts of Australia because patients are identified as needing treatment well before vision is significantly restricted. 

However, the remote nature of many Indigenous communities means access to specialist health services is limited, increasing the likelihood that reversible conditions like cataract blindness will go undetected.