Australia supports free eye camp at Brahmanbaria
The Australian High Commissioner Dr Justin Lee and Advocate Lutful Hai MP opened on 27 July a free eye camp in Brahmanbaria, organized by the Vision 2020 Brahmanbaria District Committee with the support of The Fred Hollows Foundation and the Australian community in Bangladesh.
The eye camp will run for five days and provide free screening for local people with visual impairment. Between 200 and 400 surgeries on cataract patients in particular will be conducted over the course of this week.
Speakers at the eye camp’s welcoming session noted avoidable blindness is a major public health issue in Bangladesh. There are about 15,000 cataract afflicted people in Brahmanbaria and more than 550,000 across Bangladesh.
Dr Lee welcomed The Fred Hollows Foundation’s cooperation with Brahmanbaria Sadar Hospital to help cataract patients. Since the cooperation began in 2007, the hospital has increased its cataract surgeries from just over 100 in 2006 to 960 in 2008. Dr Lee reiterated Australia’s ongoing commitment to help Bangladesh’s health sector.
The Fred Hollows Foundation’s work occurs under the umbrella of Vision 2020: The Right to Sight (or V2020) - a global initiative for Elimination of Avoidable Blindness by 2020, launched by WHO and ratified by Bangladesh. It brings together more than eighty international NGOs working with governments around the world to implement national eye care plans. The Brahmanbaria District V2020 Committee includes representatives from district government, the Ministry of Health, eye doctors, and community organizations.
The High Commissioner and his Deputy Ms Kilmeny Beckering Vinckers visited the Brahmanbaria eye camp and also the Nasirnagar Upazila Health Complex.
Australian High Commission, Dhaka
28 July 2009
For further information contact:
Senior Political & Economic Research Officer, AHC, Dhaka.
Tel: 8813105, E-mail: [email protected]