She’ll Be Right; Kiwi Can-Do Helps Timorese See

She’ll Be Right; Kiwi Can-Do Helps Timorese See Again

Blind for four years, 74-year old Timorese grandmother Olinda Guterres can see again thanks to the determination of The Fred Hollows Foundation NZ and a little kiwi ingenuity. Mrs Guterres is the first of around 1000 Timorese who will receive cataract surgery over the next 12 months in a converted shipping container in Dili, the country’s capital.

With more than 10,000 Timorese blind from cataract, the Foundation was not prepared to wait until its National Eye Centre project is finished in 2011. So set up a full-time surgical theatre in a converted shipping container at a local health centre in Dili. Hollows NZ Country Director Jacqui Ramke noted “We estimate approximately 2000 people a year are going blind from cataract. So we decided to go ahead with plans to recruit and train the country’s first surgical services team last year, and worked with the New Zealand Defence Force to find and begin converting a shipping container into a temporary operating theatre.”

Prior to April this year, less than 500 cataract operations were performed each year by local ophthalmologists and visiting teams. With the arrival of its own ophthalmologist last month, Hollows NZ expects to triple the number of operations performed annually, and bring the country closer to keeping up with the number of people who go cataract blind each year.

Before visiting the Hollows NZ eye clinic in Dili, Mrs Guterres had been blind for four years. She was completely reliant on her family for her daily care. Today, she is once again working in her vegetable garden, basket-weaving and making a valuable contribution to her family’s livelihood.

By July 2011, Hollows NZ will transfer the team to the National Eye Centre, which is funded by The Fred Hollows Foundation Australia, with additional support from NZAID and AusAID.

ENDS

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