Fred Hollows built a remarkable eye-care service, but its future is under threat

For patients in Australia’s remote outback, cataract surgery can mean a three-hour drive across isolated country instead of a trip of more than 1,000 kilometres to Sydney. In Bourke, the Outback Eye Service turns a small hospital operating theatre into a specialist eye clinic for only three days, 10 times a year.

During ABC’s visit, 84-year-old Wendy Lindsay lay awake beneath a blue sheet as surgeon Nicole Lim removed a cataract from her right eye. Lindsay had already regained clear sight in her left eye after an earlier operation, giving her greater confidence in daily life. She travelled 280 kilometres from Thurloo Downs Station, with her family sharing the drive through country so remote that her partner asked relatives to accompany her.

The service’s logistics may seem excessive for day surgery, but the alternatives are stark: a journey to Sydney, a years-long wait at a regional hospital, or, in nurse manager Joanna Barton’s blunt phrase, “just go blind”. Barton has run the New South Wales service since 1995. She joined after meeting ophthalmologist Minas Coroneo at Bourke hospital, where he was trying to keep the program alive after Fred Hollows died two years earlier.

“

I can't wait.

Hollows first entered the Australian outback almost 60 years ago. His work later brought sight-saving surgery to more than 3 million people worldwide, including tens of thousands of Indigenous Australians. Since his death, surgeons, nurses and administrative staff have continued the work in remote clinics.

That group is now ageing. Many members are nearing retirement, and they fear the service will not survive without government support. Hollows’ central belief was that geography should not determine whether someone could receive eye care. In Bourke, that principle still depends on a theatre that operates only when the travelling service arrives, and on specialists willing to keep making the journey.

“

just go blind