Tiana
Haxton RNZ Pacific journalist/presenter
Feature
– More than 100,000 sight restoring surgeries have been
delivered across the Pacific by The Fred Hollows Foundation
NZ and partners in their efforts to end avoidable blindness
and vision impairment in the region.
This work,
according to the Foundation’s, “changes lives” and the
charity’s CEO Dr Audrey Aumua said being able to restore the
gift of sight is powerful work.
She said watching
community elders open their eyes and see clearly for the
first time in years is deeply moving.
“I’ve watched
bandages come off folks’ eyes, and hear this incredible
gasp, where they often will turn and say, ‘I’m looking at my
wife for the first time in 10 years, I haven’t been able to
see her face, or this is the first time I’ve ever seen my
grandchild, I know his or her voice, I know, you know, what
they feel like, but I’ve actually never seen
them’.
“To be able to restore that kind of sight and
to have that moment is very, very powerful,” Dr Aumua
said.
The Foundation’s work reaches far across the
Pacific, where its outreach efforts help communities in need
– from Fiji and Samoa, to Nauru, Papua New Guinea and
beyond.
In 2025 alone, 114 outreach clinics delivered
more than 64,000 consultations and close to 5000 surgeries
in areas where access to specialist eye care is often
limited.
Dr Aumua said these figures reflect the
impact of the generosity of the New Zealand public who she
noted funds most of their work.
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“It’s a pretty
significant milestone for the organisation, which has been
around probably just over 20 years … But what really
delights us as an organisation is that the significant
milestone of course demonstrates the relationships and the
partnerships that we have, and really shows the power of
sustained impact.”
Rather than just delivering
treatment, the Foundation facilitates local workforce
development, supporting regional universities and specialist
training programmes.
This year, 21 people graduated as
qualified eye-nurses, while four trainee eye doctors
completed their studies in Fiji and Papua New Guinea. Eleven
more doctors are currently training to become fully
qualified ophthalmologists.
Audrey said building local
capacity and investing in Pacific-led systems is
crucial.
“When you train your own workforce … you’re
building the ability for them to lead locally. They’re not
trained purposely outside of the region and so they know
their system, they know how to work with their communities,
and I think that’s a very, very powerful part of the work
that we do.”
One of the Foundation’s major projects is
the Papua New Guinea Centre for Eye Health, currently under
construction in Port Moresby.
Once completed, it will
be PNG’s first purpose-built facility dedicated to
specialist eye-care and training.
Dr Aumua said this
will be key to addressing the countries high rates of
avoidable blindness.
“Papua New Guinea unfortunately
has probably globally the biggest burden of avoidable
blindness in the world. It’s estimated there are 11-12
million people with very, very limited access to any kinds
of services, let alone eye care services.”
“The most
important investment moving forward really is to grow the
ability for that country to deliver eye care services, and
so training doctors and nurses, and in this case
optometrists.”
While celebrating the successes over
the years, she says the work is far from done.
The
region is challenged by resource limitations, which Dr Aumua
said can be stretched thin while island nations deal with
other health concerns such as non communicable diseases,
HIV, dengue fever and more.
“They’re not always going
to pay attention to conditions such as avoidable blindness,
and so part of our efforts are really to keep raising that
advocacy flag, keep raising the visibility of eye
care.
“That will always be a challenge, because many
governments will not be able to afford the resources and to
prioritize eye care, given the many other challenges they’re
dealing with.”
The Fred Hollows Foundation dreams of a
world in which no person is needlessly blind or vision
impaired.
Dr Aumua said they are committed to the work
ahead to one day see this dream become a
reality.
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