House debates

Monday, 10 September 2012

Statements on Indulgence

Fred Hollows Foundation

5:01 pm

Photo of Kelly O'DwyerKelly O'Dwyer (Higgins, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I associate myself with the remarks made by the Member for Shortland and the Member for Riverina just before me. One of the most rewarding parts of my job is to stand in this chamber to speak about remarkable Australians who have made the lives of their fellow Australians that much better. Today we get a chance to pay tribute to the life, the work and the enduring achievements of Fred Hollows AC.

His is a legacy that is felt not only in this country but around the world. Fred Hollows was a pioneer. His advances in ophthalmology and his application of that work in some of the most underprivileged parts of the world has given sight to millions of people transforming lives and futures. From humble beginnings Fred Hollows followed in his father's charitable footsteps and sort a life of service for those most in need.

Born in Dunedin, New Zealand, in 1928, Fred grew up in a traditional household and like most Kiwi boys loved his rugby. Having a very religious upbringing, Fred joined a seminary before a summer job at a mental hospital changed his perspective and his life's ambition—and thank goodness for all of us for that. Fred dropped his divinity studies and took up psychology and chemistry, yearning to learn how the brain worked and what it was that made people so unique.

Fred was then offered a place in the Otego University Medical School—a challenge he accepted without hesitation. After practicing for many years as a general practitioner—something he found particularly demanding—Fred saved up enough money to travel to London where he embarked on a diploma from the Moorfields Eye Hospital/UCL Institute of Ophthalmology. In 1965 Fred moved to Australia to become Associate Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. From 1965 to 1992 he was head of the ophthalmology department, overseeing the teaching at the UNSW and the Prince of Wales and Prince Henry hospitals. In his first year he set up a small eye unit at the Prince of Wales Hospital and performed the hospital's first cataract extraction. In the mid-1970s, Fred was the driving force behind the establishment of the National Trachoma and Eye Health Program. Under this program eye care was provided to many people in remote Aboriginal communities with Fred visiting more than 460 communities himself.

Fred dedicated his life's work to those less fortunate than himself. He travelled the world using his skills to make life better for those in need by returning sight where otherwise it would have been impossible. He trained locals in countries like Nepal, India, Sri Lanka and Eritrea to perform much-needed surgery and eye treatments. He also found a solution to make surgery a realistic option for very poor people for the first time by manufacturing a lens for cataract surgery for $7 rather than $300.

No matter how poor or how remote the community in which he performed surgery, Fred was guided by the attitude that, 'Every eye is an eye. When you are doing the surgery there, that is just as important as if you were doing eye surgery on the Prime Minister or the king.' Here is a man who saw everyone as an equal. No one person was more deserving than another, and he applied his services with these values as his guide.

While Fred was born in New Zealand, we were formally able to claim him as one of our own when he became an Australian citizen in 1989. As an Australian, he was honoured for his life's work in 1990 when he was named the Australian of the Year, and in 1991 when he was made a Companion of the Order of Australia, Australia's highest honour. In setting up the Fred Hollows Foundation 20 years ago, he was able to ensure that his life's work would be able to be continued beyond his life—that his legacy might be continued.

In conclusion, I would like to call on my colleagues in this place to commit to the vision that Fred Hollows articulated when he established the foundation. I quote again:

Our vision is for a world where no one is needlessly blind, and Indigenous Australians enjoy the same health and life expectancy as other Australians.

Anything less will be a failure and, as was said of the US space mission—it also applies to this vision—failure is simply not an option.

Comments

No comments