Photo courtesy of Sandy Scheltema/The Age

About the Program

"It was only me in 1992 but now because of lots of training by The Fred Hollows Foundation we have surgeons in Da Nang city who can provide surgery...to keep it going we have to show people the fishing rod and not just give out the fish. We can say we have done that and that there is enough capacity to continue our work in the future" - Dr Pham Binh, one of the first doctors in Vietnam to be trained by Fred Hollows

The Fred Hollows Foundation has worked in Vietnam since 1993.

Today, The Foundation's Vietnam Blindness Prevention Program currently operates in 10 provinces in the central, southern and central highlands regions of Central Vietnam, namely: Binh Dinh, Phu Yen, Quang Nam, Quang Tri, Quang Binh, Vinh Long, Dak Lak, Quang Ngai, Thua Thien Hue and Da Nang City. The majority of these provincial projects take a comprehensive approach, which includes:

  • disease control services, including prevention and treatment of the leading causes of blindness such as cataract, glaucoma, trachoma, refractive error and pediatric eye complications
  • infrastructure development, including construction of eye units or hospitals and provision of necessary medical equipment
  • human resource development, including training of eye surgeons and other ophthalmic personnel, village health volunteers and hospital administration and management staff at various levels of the health system
  • strengthening of referral pathways from the village to the provincial level for patients to access eye care advice and treatment
  • improving the affordability of cataract surgery and provision of a subsidy for poor patients to receive free cataract surgery
  • raising community awareness on the prevention and treatment of eye disease through multi-media channels, which includes the production of pamphlets, billboards, radio, television commercials and documentaries as well as theatrical performances in villages
  • research into the quality of surgical outcomes and the prevalence of blindness.

The Foundations provincial projects are implemented in partnership with the provincial health bureaus or departments of health, who have contributed physical, human and financial resources to the projects.

The Foundation maintains it's strong partnership with the Vietnam National Institute of Ophthalmology (VNIO) in Hanoi where Fred first trained Vietnamese eye surgeons in 1992 in the conduct of ECCE+IOL cataract surgery - an event that the VNIO still marks as a "revolution in ophthalmology" in Vietnam.

In 2007, The Foundation is supporting the VNIO to:

  • coordinate the donation of 5,000 FHF IOLs per year
  • establish a refraction centre
  • develop national and provincial PBL plans in line with V2020 guidelines and objectives
  • install a central-level health information management system
  • undertake a national survey to obtain more accurate data on the prevalence of blindness in Vietnam, which will inform national eye health plans and provide baseline data from which to assess program impact.

The Country Program team at The Foundation's office in Da Nang City is composed of 15 staff. The Foundation's Country Manager Dr Huynh Tan Phuc leads the team and offers strategic direction for the program.