Susie O'Neill

A ground breaking initiative restoring sight to people from remote Indigenous communities in Central Australia featured on ABC TV on Monday, 16 February.

The award winning Australian Story series takes a look at the Central Australian Integrated Eye Health Program through the eyes of Foundation ambassador Susie O’Neill.

The two-time Olympic gold medallist was in Alice Springs in late 2008 to see first hand what’s involved in pulling such a program together.

Go here to find out more , or visit ABC TV's Australian Story website to view the program.

My father, John, and my husband, Cliff, are both ophthalmologists and while that certainly doesn't make me an expert on eye care, it has given me an insight into the value of the work undertaken by Fred Hollows.

Since joining The Fred Hollows Foundation as an Ambassador, I have learnt that cataract blindness is relatively simple to treat. It's amazing to think that a 20 minute operation can restore sight, and yet millions of people around the world suffer from it.

Fred wasn't daunted by the size of the problem, but motivated by the simplicity of the solution. I like that. I think of it in terms of swimming training - just take it one lap at a time and, if you're determined, you'll get there in the end. Fred did just that. One by one, he started training doctors in developing countries to perform cataract surgery. Then he appealed to the Australian public for funds to build a lens factory in Eritrea so the doctors had the equipment they needed.

It's that 'can-do' attitude which I admire so much. And the results speak for themselves. That factory now produces lenses 24 hours a day, and The Fred Hollows Foundation has trained more than 500 doctors who have restored sight to more than half a million people.

But Fred Hollows didn't only work overseas. As far back as the 1970s, he recognised the extraordinary health problems that exist in Aboriginal communities. He employed the same can-do attitude and tried to rid those communities of the eye disease trachoma.

I've heard that Fred wasn't the easiest man to deal with, but when your goals are set so high and the outcome is so important, you have to stay focussed and sometimes you have to be tough.

His wife, Gabi Hollows, told me that when Fred found out he was dying, his determination grew even stronger. Apparently, at one point, he even checked himself out of his hospital bed to fly to Vietnam so he could honour a promise to start training doctors there.

Now, it's one thing to get out of your bed at 4.00am to go to swimming training every day, but it's another thing entirely to drag yourself out of a hospital bed.

Fred Hollows believed that nobody should be blinded by cataracts when treatment is so simple. His commitment to that belief saw him become an unlikely Australian hero, but certainly a deserving one.

I would have liked to have known Fred Hollows on a personal level, but I have to say I'm quite glad he wasn't my swimming coach!

Source: As published in The Australian Women's Weekly