Breaking new ground for eye health in the Pacific

Funded by The Fred Hollows Foundation NZ with the support of NZAID and AusAID, The Pacific Eye Institute-CWM Hospital Eye Centre will include two operating theatres, outpatient clinics, and teaching facilities for educating eye doctors and nurses from across the Pacific region.  

To be completed late 2010, the Centre will incorporate the most modern equipment and technology in the Pacific and will be the primary eye care teaching facility in the Pacific, doubling the number of eye doctors and nurses who will receive training.

Officiating at the groundbreaking function in early October, Fiji Minister of Health Dr Neil Sharma commended the Fred Hollows Foundation NZ and the Australian and New Zealand governments for investing in such an important initiative.  “The Pacific Eye Institute is training doctors and nurses in the techniques needed in our region, with the equipment available in our region, to treat people who are unnecessarily blind. It is an important step forward for our community, as it will allow more doctors and nurses to be trained to provide specialized treatment and surgery to our own people,” noted Dr Sharma.

The Pacific Eye Institute was established in Suva in 2007 and provides postgraduate training for eye nurses and eye doctors from around the Pacific.  In the course of providing supervised practical training to students, it also provides eye health services to the Fijian population with clinical and surgical activities at CWM Hospital and a refraction clinic at Tamavua Hospital.