The Fred Hollows Foundation achieved record results in 2013, reaching over 4.5 million people worldwide.

The Foundation’s results were announced last night at its Annual General Meeting in Sydney.

In the last financial year, 449,768 eye operations, procedures and treatments were performed by The Foundation with our partners – up from 404,915 in 2012.

The Foundation also trained 42,189 eye health workers, giving them what Fred called “the tools of their trade” and building or upgrading 48 medical facilities.

We also continued to lead Australia’s contribution to eliminating trachoma in the worst affected countries, providing over 4.1 million people with antibiotics to combat the disease.

Professor Fred Hollows passionately believed that no one should be needlessly blind, said CEO Brian Doolan.

“Fred hated double standards,” he said. “To him it was unacceptable that people in the developing world were going blind from diseases that were commonly treated elsewhere. Tackling this inequality was his lifetime goal.

“Fred would be proud to see The Foundation has grown so dramatically since he started it 21 years ago. Every aspect of our work – from the number of operations, to the donations, the people we train, revenue raised, employees, and Government support – has steadily increased.”

Mr Doolan says the results are further evidence of the progress being made towards eliminating avoidable blindness.

“More than 20 years after we lost Fred, the Australian public continues to support his Foundation, saving the sight of millions every year,” he said.

“And the exciting thing is that the prevalence of global blindness is declining, thanks in part to our supporters. 

“The 2010 Global Burden of Disease Study has shown that because of the efforts of organisations such as ours, in 2010 18.5 million fewer people were blind than would have been expected given population growth and ageing since 1990.

“Fred would now want us to get on with the job to reach the four out of five people still blind in the world today.”

The results top off a year when The Foundation was named The Australian Charity of the Year 2013 in the inaugural Australian Charity Awards.

Download the 2013 Annual Report here

Results in brief
  • 123,193 cataract surgeries and 326,575 other eye operations and treatments
  • 4,101,841 people treated with antibiotics to combat trachoma
  • 4,427 diabetic retinopathy procedure as part of a new focus
  • 2,862,514 eye screenings
  • 221 surgeons and 41,968 eye health workers trained
  • 48 medical facilities built or upgraded
  • $3,572,104 in medical equipment supplied.