Local Staff

I have been living in Kimbe in the West New Britain island province in Papua New Guinea for the past 18 months. I am an eye nurse by profession, so not long after arriving here I went to investigate what eye services were available in this beautiful island with the country's fastest growing population of around half a million people. I soon found out that there is only eye doctor in Rabaul, hundreds of miles away from my home, and three eye nurses.

One of these nurses is Lorna, who is responsible for eye care at the Valoka Health Centre, near Kimbe, and she told me the sad story typical of the problems encountered here: management ignored the importance of eye care, no eye medications were available and, despite her skills, she was only allowed to hold an eye clinic once a week.

Lorna's despondency is not unusual in countries where so little funding is available for health care and, like many other trained nurses in these situations, she was considering giving up. However,we heard about The Fred Hollows Foundation NZ's work in other parts of PNG, and you can imagine Lorna's excitement when, thanks to your support The Foundation said they would help us tackle blindness in our region.

We started small, with vision testing and selling low cost spectacles, but now we have big plans
for nurse training and surgical visits from our nearest urban centre in Rabaul. Many of the blind people here have told me how humiliated they feel having to be led everywhere, and having no independence. They talk of the isolation and sadness. Some of the elderly women struggle to cook but several have been burnt because of the open fires, and they can no longer do women's work in the garden. With vision loss a woman's status drops dramatically and often a second wife steps into her position, leaving her even more humiliated.

Whenever possible, these people travel huge distances at considerable expense to have their sight restored. After a surgical team visits there is happiness, celebrations and dancing, families rejoicing that a parent who has not seen for years is now included again in community life.

Our work with The Foundation also includes school screening and providing low cost spectacles to school children. So often here children with poor vision are taken away from school because parents and teachers think they are ‘slow'. Good vision gives the opportunity of education and a career. Our goal is to integrate children with visual impairment into local primary schools and we are employing a community-based health officer to do this work.

The success at Valoka is encouraging and has given us the confidence to extend our services even further. However, in order to do this, we desperately need funds for training, equipment, transport and treatment. It is only with well trained local eye nurses and doctors that we can address the estimated 15,000 people in West New Britain who are blind or have very poor vision. Lorna and I are so grateful to have the opportunity to work with The Fred Hollows Foundation NZ's dedicated and dynamic team. There have been so many happy and emotional experiences which without the support of people like you would not have come to fruition.