Eye Surgeon Hopes Best Is Still To Come
The Age
Saturday January 26, 1991
Ask Professor Fred Hollows what his greatest achievement is and he says he hopes it is yet to come.
Despite being named an Australian Outstanding Achiever for 1990, the eye surgeon still has much he wants to do.
Professor Hollows, 61, head of the University of New South Wales ophthalmology department, is ``chuffed" about the award, mostly because it gives him a chance to impress upon people the urgent need for development work in Africa, and among Aboriginal Australians. He is waiting to see today whether he will receive the ultimate honor of being named Australian of the Year.
Twenty years ago, Professor Hollows led the way in identifying and treating blinding eye infections among Aborigines in outback Australia. He was awarded the 1990 Australian Human Rights Medal for his pioneering work.
With Aboriginal health programs established, Professor Hollows is concentrating on health services in Africa, particularly war-torn Eritrea. During the past few years he has made the arduous journey to Eritrea several times, and has been working through the aid agency, Austcare, to develop a blindness prevention program.
The program involves training local medical people to perform much-needed eye surgery and encouraging them to manufacture the lens and equipment needed for the operations.
It is difficult to get the professor to talk about himself, but he takes the Australia Day award as ``recognition of the things I stand for".
``I stand for spreading the benefits of modern medicine as widely as possible and improving people's living standards," he says.
Professor Hollows has been fighting cancer for more than a year, but refuses to slow down, and is planning another trip to Eritrea.
He also has a cheeky sense of humor. In an interview with `The Age' last year, he played down his achievements and said he just happened to have been born into a long line of humanists. ``And besides that, it's fun. What do you want me to do? Be a bored Macquarie Street specialist and worry about neurotic bloody dowagers?" His emphasis in Africa is on development aid. He stresses that food is desperately needed, but is looking to the long-term future of the African nations.
He is appalled at the resources being wasted on war when those resources are so vital for Africans to survive.
Professor Hollows hopes his greatest achievement ``will be as part of a team that sets up the manufacturing in the Third World of the equipment necessary to restore sight to blind people".
Donations can be sent to Austcare's Blindness Prevention Program, Locked Bag No.15, Camperdown, New South Wales 2050, or phone 008 021-103.
© 1991 The Age