Let’s finish the job Fred started – for an Australia where no one goes needlessly blind.
Like too many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, Sally is three times more likely to be blind than other Australians. She is 12 times more likely to suffer from a blinding cataract. If Fred heard those statistics today, he would be furious. His passion to close the eye health gap for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians is what sparked decades of work. It’s one of the things that inspired him and Gabi to set up The Foundation. While we’ve made great progress since then, there is still a shocking gap that we know Fred would not accept. If Fred was here, he would tell us to “get in there and get the job done”. And with his voice urging us on, that’s exactly what we’re going to do.
We’ve just launched an ambitious five year plan to finally close the gap in eye health so that by 2023 no Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander person will go needlessly blind. We know what works – we’ve been doing it for over 26 years. We know that together we can close the gap in eye health once and for all.
Like too many other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, Sally did not have access to the same basic eye health care that other Australians do. Thanks to you, she finally got the help she needed and is now able to see her grandchildren again.
The Fred Hollows Foundation contributed to 1 in every 4 cataract surgeries performed on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people last year. We need to do more to meet the need.
Over the next 5 years we are going to train more than 100 eye health workers and work with Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services putting Aboriginal health in Aboriginal hands.
This is the content within the modal window.
Clementine was just one of those people facing this scenario: she was desperate to help her son, but the village where they live is hours from the nearest hospital. Travelling is really not an option for people in her situation.
Without outreach programs like the ones run by The Fred Hollows Foundation, finding help would have been very difficult. But a community health worker visited the area where Eric lives, and contacted Dr Ciku Mathenge, a leading eye surgeon who has restored sight to thousands of people
Australia is the only developed country where trachoma still exists, but only in remote Aboriginal communities. Rates of trachoma are falling but many communities are still at risk.
Dr Kris Rallah-Baker is an inspiring man, and The Foundation is proud to have played a small part in his training to become Australia’s first Indigenous opthamologist. And as he said, “the ultimate goal for him (Fred), I imagine, was to have an Aboriginal person as an ophthalmologist." Fred would be so proud, and as a supporter of The Foundation, you should be too.