Indigenous surgery program to fix eyesight of 50

An intensive surgery program taking place in Alice Springs this week aims to help restore or improve the sight of up to 50 patients, many from Central Australia’s remote Indigenous communities.

The Fred Hollows Foundation’s Chris Masters, Manager of the Central Australian Integrated Eye Health Program, says the surgery initiative, which runs until Friday, is necessary to help cut the waiting list of patients requiring urgent eye surgery.

“There are approximately 300 people on the waiting list for eye surgery at Alice Springs Hospital and if we are going to be able to help the people on the list who live in remote communities, we have to put in a bit of extra effort,” Masters says.

“Imagine how hard it would be to get your eyes fixed up if you lived several hundred kilometres from a hospital and you didn’t have a car or anyone to give you a lift,” says Masters.

“Well that’s what we do. We help some of these old people by giving them a lift to town and reassuring them through the process of eye surgery. It can be pretty intimidating for anyone, so it’s vital that we make it as simple and straightforward as possible,” says Masters.

A report on eye health in Australia, released by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare last week, stated that hospitalisation rates for cataract were lower amongst Indigenous Australians.

“If the rate is lower it’s not because cataract is less prevalent in Indigenous communities but because in many ways the system is failing people who live in such remote locations. Hospital numbers don’t take into account people who are losing their vision needlessly because they can’t get to hospital or they don’t know it’s possible to get help,” says Masters.

“That is where the extra effort is required and as far as we are concerned it certainly delivers results,” says Masters.

The week long surgery session is the second of three to take place in 2008 and since the program began, early last year, doctors have carried out more than 200 operations.

The Central Australian Integrated Eye Health Program is an initiative involving The Fred Hollows Foundation, the Eye Foundation, the local Aboriginal health services - Central Australian Aboriginal Congress and Anyinginyi Health Aboriginal Corporation, as well as the Commonwealth and Northern Territory governments.

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For more details contact:
Joe Boughton-Dent - Media and Communications Coordinator
The Fred Hollows Foundation ph: 0401 650 440 or (02) 8741 1928
Email: jboughtondent@hollows.org