Our year
at a glance

The Fred Hollows Foundation NZ is now over 25 years old. Over these many years, donors have supported us faithfully, making a positive difference to restoring eyesight and eliminating avoidable blindness in the Pacific. My heartfelt thanks to every one of you who has been part of this journey. However, as much as we can all be proud of some fantastic achievements, there is still more to do.

As well as the “business as usual” aspects of delivering our services, this past year has seen us undertake some significant strategic initiatives to continue building more eye care capacity in the Pacific. This is all part of our aim to enable a long-term sustainable solution for the Pacific, by the Pacific, in the Pacific.

A key focus in the past year has been the $2.5 million rebuild of the Vanuatu National Eye Centre. This project, generously supported by the New Zealand Government and donors, was urgently required to support the return of Dr Johnson Kasso, a Foundation-trained eye doctor, and provide him with an appropriate operating facility in his home country. The new facility will go a long way to increasing Vanuatu’s eye surgery capacity from 200 to 800 per year. Very pleasingly, this will meet the target surgical rate to eliminate avoidable blindness in the country, as estimated by the World Health Organization.

With the new eye centre open and Dr Kasso on board, not only will Vanuatu’s eye surgery capacity dramatically increase, but the escalating number of diabetes eye care patients in Vanuatu will receive better treatment. As an organisation, we remain challenged by the impact in the Pacific of the scourge that is diabetes. To be successfully addressed, this will continue to require more infrastructure in the Pacific to allow regular screening and related services.

Looking forward, our next biggest strategic challenge is Papua New Guinea. The eye health challenges in Papua New Guinea are immense and complex. With just 18 per cent of its population occupying urban areas and close to 40 per cent living below the international poverty line, it is of little surprise that a recent survey found that 5.6 per cent of adults aged over 50 years are blind. The country has the highest rate of blindness in the Pacific and only 11 eye doctors, a long way off the 80 needed to meet its eye care needs, as recommended by the World Health Organization. We can’t address this alone and are working hard to align interested parties in a sustainable solution for Papua New Guinea.

Rest assured, we are working extremely hard as an organisation to do ourselves out of a job. But we are not there yet. As such my thanks to all of you; our partners, supporters and friends of Fred, for continuing to join us in this worthy cause.

We are immensely proud of the clinicians who graduate from our courses and we take every opportunity to speak of the amazing work they do. And rightly so. They are super skilled and talented eye doctors and nurses who perform ‘micro-surgery in the jungle’. The work they do is the only way to eliminate avoidable blindness in a sustainable way in the Pacific.

As the clinicians often acknowledge, they are fortunate that in Auckland and our in-country offices, they have exquisitely talented, ambitious, equally dedicated teams who have chosen to use their incredible skills to do whatever it takes to ensure the clinicians have the support they need.

Not even the wealthiest people just give their money away. It must be for a cause that people can believe in, and they usually have to be asked. The hours spent crafting newsletters and appeals, writing cards and emails, creating video clips and editing the website, answering phones and following up on donors and bequests, are all aimed at keeping our generous donors in touch with the incredible work being done. Raising the funds is as important to eliminating avoidable blindness as a clinician with a slit-lamp, examining a patient. In fact, it is often the generous donors who have provided the slit-lamp in the first place.

The accuracy of our financial reporting and the professionalism of our reporting to government, corporate, institutional and major donors, are key to the credibility of The Foundation, as are the clinical outcomes that we so carefully monitor, count and collate. Every aspect enables us to articulate a compelling case for how effectively we are developing and strengthening the eye care system in the Pacific.

Being able to fund and undertake outreaches and provide expensive equipment to remote locations; to tackle diabetes and to not shrink from the challenge that is Papua New Guinea; to be able to see opportunities for advocacy and coalitions; and to build impressive infrastructure that sets the standard, all takes time, funding, careful planning and a good mix of patience and tenacity. It is an essential part of the huge engine room of massive talent, energy and skill that is The Fred Hollows Foundation NZ!

Recently I reminded the graduates that we didn’t train them to stay at the Pacific Eye Institute. We trained them to join the great wave of graduates from previous years and to provide eye care leadership in their home country and hospital. I also assured them that they don’t go out alone. Our staff and our donors are with them every step of the way. Together, all the staff and our generous donors are keeping Fred’s vision of a world where no one is needlessly blind, alive.