Tag term summary

• Sight restored to 190 in Cambodia

  A five-day eye camp in the Kampong Chen Cheung commune of Stong District, Cambodia, has restored sight to over 190 people. Around 500 people lined up recently to have their eyes checked by an outreach surgical team consisting of an ophthalmologist, a resident and three nurses.  Mr Chhun Chat, the commune chief, said that every year The Fred Hollows Foundation’s eye camp brings hope, smiles and laughter to his villages. “As far as I remember it has been the fifth eye camp conducted in my commune,” he says.

• Fourfold return on every $1 spent restoring sight

  The results of a landmark study show the economic benefits of eliminating avoidable blindness in developing countries outweigh the costs by a factor of four to one. This means that for every dollar invested in preventing someone from going blind, more than four dollars is returned in economic terms.

• Bob Carr launches new study into cost and benefits of ending blindness

  Australia’s Foreign Minister, Senator Bob Carr today launched the results of a landmark study into the cost and benefits of ending avoidable blindness throughout the world.

• Jean

  Special report by Brian Doolan, CEO Rwanda: When we first met 12-year-old Jean, he told us he didn’t know how to laugh or smile. Born with blinding cataract in both eyes, he’d been deprived of an independent and active childhood.

• Investing in Vision

  February 2013: PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) has released the fourth, and final, report in the series commissioned by The Fred Hollows Foundation to calculate the costs and benefits of achieving the VISION 2020 goal of eliminating avoidable blindness by the year 2020.

• Sudip

  Special report by Brian Doolan, CEO Nepal: Sudip had never clearly seen the face of his beautiful and loving wife.

• Ending avoidable blindness

  Will you be part of the worldwide campaign to end avoidable blindness by 2020? Share this video to help spread the word.

• Advocate to end avoidable blindness

  Will you be part of the worldwide campaign to end avoidable blindness by 2020? Right now a new Action Plan is being developed by The World Health Organization to set out the work needed to eliminate avoidable blindness by 2020. The Action Plan needs engagement and input from Member States and non-government organisations across the globe.

• May 2012: Quarterly Report

  In this issue: Joy returns to one Kenyan family, 2011 highlights from the field, a special report from Pakistan, and Giap '20 years on' by journalist Miranda Devine. > Download: Quarterly Report

• Dr Sanduk Ruit

  Dr Sanduk Ruit is a long-time friend and partner of The Fred Hollows Foundation. World-renowned Nepalese ophthalmologist Dr Ruit has performed more than 100,000 sight-saving operations in his distinguished career and is founder and Medical Director of The Foundation’s partner organisation in Nepal, the Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology. Born in a small remote village in the north east of Nepal, Dr Ruit's start in life was tough. His village, which sits at an altitude of 11,000 feet, was poor and had no electricity.

• Dr Sanduk Ruit features in Ray Martin's 'A Current Affair' special report

• Fred Hollows featured on new postal stamp

  Australia Post is paying tribute to Professor Fred Hollows and four other remarkable physicians, who have contributed to making Australia’s health system one of the best in the world, with the release of a limited edition stamp series.   The Medical Doctors – A Lasting Legacy stamp series will be released next Tuesday (10 April) and features five doctors who are no longer with us including Professor Fred Hollows, who was Australian of the Year in 1990.

• Foreign Minister Bob Carr a first hand witness to miracle of sight

  Newly appointed foreign minister, Bob Carr, has visited The Foundation's work at Siem Reap Eye Hospital in Cambodia, where he witnessed sight restoring cataract surgery - part of our efforts to eliminate blindness in the region. “Every Australian should be proud of what's being achieved in Cambodia - it's incredible - in just 10 years of work here The Fred Hollows Foundation has helped cut the rate of avoidable blindness from over one percent of the population to 0.38 percent,” Senator Carr said.

• Tackling blindness in China

  Lan Chengchou and Zhou Jingguang are both blind with bilateral cataracts. And they are longing to see their family and friends again. See how The Fred Hollows Foundation is restoring sight and dignity to people like Lan and Zhou in China.

• Lom Lun

  Special report by Brian Doolan, CEOCambodia: A man can see and his grandson can have a normal childhood thanks to a new eye hospital in Cambodia constructed with the help of our supporters and the Australian Government.

• Video: Tackling blindness in China

  Lan Chengchou and Zhou Jingguang are both blind with bilateral cataracts. And they are longing to see their family and friends again. See how The Fred Hollows Foundation is restoring sight and dignity to people like Lan and Zhou in China.

• Children and eye disease

  A blind child in a developing country faces a lifetime of hardship. The World Health Organization has noted that more than half of children who become blind will die within a year or two, often from the diseases which made them blind. Children who are blind suffer profound social, economic and personal hardship, and so do their families.

• Jet - Shine on for Fred Hollows

  A video tribute (full version) to Australian eye surgeon Fred Hollows, featuring music by Jet. Thank you to Jet and all The Fred Hollows Foundation's supporters for helping Fred's work to shine on.

• Latest treatment could soon be affordable for all

  Director of the Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology in Nepal, Dr Sanduk Ruit, has told The Himalayan Times that research is underway with a Swiss company which may bring state-of-the-art eye surgery to the developing world.  "We have been able to simplify the procedure [for] phacoemulsification cataract surgery, and slashed the cost of equipment necessary by about half," Dr Ruit said.

• December 2011: Quarterly Report

  In this issue: Help arrives just in time for brave little H'Nhi, and an inspiring interview with Dr Phuong, who received paediatric surgical training with the help of our supporters. > Download: Quarterly Report

• H’Nhi

• H’Nhi

  Vietnam: When five-year-old H'Nhi was just a baby learning to crawl, her mother noticed something was wrong. “There was something white inside her eyes,” she remembers. H’Nhi’s mother was afraid, and heartbroken that something should be wrong with her baby, her only girl in a family of boys.

• Sight restored to 65 children in Vietnam

  Sixty-five children had their sight restored in central Vietnam through the Foundation-supported Sight For Children program. The surgical intensive coincided with the Vietnamese school holidays, when hundreds of children are screened for a range of eye diseases. A week of free surgeries follow. The Sight For Children program operates in Phu Yen and Binh Dinh provinces and represents a significant proportion of the childhood blindness work supported by The Foundation in Vietnam.

• A doctor for Shangdu

  For the first time, people in China's remote Shangdu County can have their sight restored without lengthy travel, after the region acquired its first eye surgeon. Accessible surgery is possible due to the training of a local surgeon, Dr Ming Huang, with support from The Fred Hollows Foundation and Standard Chartered Bank. Dr Huang was previously a generalist but now has the specialist skills to treat complex eye conditions.

• Zeineb

  Fred Hollows spent the last years of his life working to restore sight in Eritrea, Africa. It was a country close to Fred's heart and The Fred Hollows Foundation is proud to be carrying on his work. This video tells the story of three year old Zeineb, who was born with cataracts in both eyes. Thanks to The Foundation's supporters and the work of local doctors, Zeineb's life has been changed forever.

• Phan

  Special report by Brian Doolan, CEOCambodia: Phan was eleven when his eyes “started to go funny”. Three years later he couldn't see the blackboard at school. Sight restoring surgery means he can get an education and has hope for a better future.

• Cambodian outreach clinic restores sight to 257

  Sight has been restored to 257 people living in one of Cambodia’s poorest regions.  An outreach eye clinic was recently held in Kampong Speu Province, in the country's south-west. A team of six medical staff worked intensively at Kampong Speu Eye Unit to screen the eyes of almost 600 people over five days. Of these, 173 people were diagnosed with cataract and 84 with other blindness causing conditions. All received sight-restoring surgery.

• Leave a bequest

  Leaving the world a better place was one of Fred Hollows' basic beliefs. He was passionate about restoring sight to disadvantaged people in developing countries and improving the health and wellbeing of Indigenous Australians.

• Preoperative visual acuity of people undergoing cataract surgery in Nepal

  Preoperative visual acuity of people undergoing cataract surgery in rural and urban Nepal  R Gurung, M K Shrestha, A Müller, S Ruit, Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology

• Improving Indigenous health

  Professor Fred Hollows worked tirelessly to tackle the crippling health conditions and inequities experienced by Indigenous Australians.

• Ending avoidable blindness

  Fred Hollows had a vision of ending avoidable blindness. With the help of our partners and supporters, The Foundation is working to make Fred’s vision a reality. An estimated 39 million people around the world today are blind. Four out of five don't have to be.

• Low-cost camera brings hope for early detection

  The Fred Hollows Foundation is supporting the development of a low–cost camera which takes pictures inside the human eye.  The pictures can be examined by trained eye health workers to allow early diagnosis and treatment of eye diseases which would otherwise lead to blindness. "Eye health workers around the world often need to make long, difficult journeys to examine people living in remote areas," says The Foundation's CEO Brian Doolan.

• The Foundation

  The Fred Hollows Foundation is a lean and independent, non-profit, secular organisation that was started by Fred and Gabi Hollows and friends the year before he died. The Foundation has worked in over 40 countries around the world and with Indigenous communities in remote parts of Australia, and continues to be inspired by Fred’s lifelong endeavour to end avoidable blindness and improve Indigenous health.

• What one eye doctor can do

  A desire to reach patients in remote pockets of Nepal inspired Dr Indira Poudel to pursue a career in ophthalmology. With The Foundation's support, she now plays a key role in restoring sight to people in the country's far-flung regions. Dr Indira Poudel has been working at the Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology in Kathmandu for five years. From a young age, Dr Indira knew she wanted to study medicine.

• Yim

  Special report by Brian Doolan, CEO More than anything, Yim Noang longed to see the face of her granddaughter, Sun Doaun. Of all her grandchildren, it was Sun who most often missed school to lead her around their village and watch out for her.

• Chien

  Special report by Brian Doolan, CEO Vietnam: When we first met Chien, he was peeking through a gap in the wall of his grandfather's house. Condemned to a life in the shadows Born with cataract in his left eye, this sad little five-year-old boy could not bear to be exposed to light – it gave him too much pain.

• George and Margaret

  Special report by Brian Doolan, CEO Kenya: George and Margaret had been inseparable for most of their adult lives. Blinded by cataract as they got older, they were able to survive with daily support from their daughter Felistia.

• Malo

  Special report by Brian Doolan, CEOVietnam: The accepted wisdom in medical circles is that a child born with cataracts should be treated before reaching seven years of age. After seven, it is less likely the brain will respond to signals from the eyes. Malo is nine. A miracle in Vietnam I was in Vietnam with a team from The Foundation when I met Malo.

• Langaliki

  Australia: More than anything else, respected artist Langaliki Langeliki wanted to see again so that she could paint again. And, she wanted to be able to visit her loved ones. Langaliki lives in the community of Pukatja, also known as Ernabella, 435 km south east of Alice Springs. She paints in the colourful and dramatic style for which the Ernabella region is famous.

• Lmesinae

  Kenya: Lmesinae had cataracts in both eyes and would probably have spent the rest of his life in an institution, with no future, and no hope. Sight restoring surgery changed his life. Twelve-year-old Lmesinae lives in a remote part of Kenya, many hours drive from the nearest town. His village is a semi-permanent collection of mud huts, with a token fence to keep the animals off the rare scraps of vegetation.

• Josephine

  Rwanda: On one catastrophic day in 1994, armed gangs swept into Josephine’s Rwandan village and she lost almost all her family. Then, five years ago, she lost her sight. There is no way to give Josephine back her family. But we were able to restore her sight.

• Krim Yum

  Krim Yum’s cataracts had been getting worse—the faces of his children grew hazy and he found it difficult to work. By the time his two youngest children were born his sight was entirely gone. Yum had never seen their smiling faces. Yum and his wife Lake Phat are traditional musicians, eking out a living with their six children in the desperately poor Cambodian province of Kampong Thom. As his cataracts developed and Krim Yum gradually lost his sight, he was forced to abandon his livelihood as a musician and let his music students go.

• Hare and Mina

  Hare and his sister Mina had never seen the faces of their parents. The children were eight and four years old and both of them were blind in both eyes from birth, as a result of cataracts. Hare and Mina live in the remote town of Khadga Bhanjyang in the Nuwakot District, seven hours precarious drive from Kathmandu through mountainous country in the foothills of the Himalayas.

• Snowy

  Special report by Gabi Hollows, Founding Director Australia: Snowy McDonald is one of the last old-style stockmen. His sight had deteriorated to a cloudy ‘soup’ but, with the help of The Foundation, one simple operation changed all that.

• Simila

  Special report by Brian Doolan, CEOKenya: Rose has never seen the face of her youngest daughter Simila – a beautiful, laughing little girl who never leaves her mother’s side.

• Reggie

  Special report by Gabi Hollows, Founding Director Australia: The impact of even one fairly simple operation can be huge, particularly with Aboriginal patients, because of the role of the elders in the community.

• Giap

  In 1992 Tran Van Giap was seven years old. The little boy had extremely poor vision in one eye. Giap’s father, a Vietnamese war veteran who worked as a farmer in one of the country's poorest rural areas, took him to Hanoi by train to seek help.

• Cataract

  People who are blind from cataract generally have a severe reduction in their personal and economic quality of life and even die prematurely because of their blindness.  

• Bob McMullan visits Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology

  Australia's Parliamentary Secretary for International Development and Assistance, The Hon. Bob McMullan MP, has praised the achievements of Tilganga and The Fred Hollows Foundation during his visit to the Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology in Kathmandu. Mr McMullan spent over an hour touring the Institute which provides eye care in Kathmandu and outreach services into remote regions of Nepal.