Fred Hollows Foundation – A Year in Review
With Brio Group having just ‘smashed’ our team goal of donating the equivalent of 365 gifts of sight to the Fred Hollow Foundation we thought it would be a great way for us to cement this achievement by getting a run down on what the foundation has done over the last 12 months. So we invited Sue Larsen from the Fred Hollows Foundation to join our monday morning team meeting today to fill us in.
From my perspective it was really inspiring to see a Foundation that continues to grow and support the vision of one man who died almost 20 years ago.
Sue told us about her recent trip to Vietnam and The Foundations work over there that she experienced first hand. In Vietnam they preformed 14,147 cataract operations and 15,498 other sight saving or improving interventions. It was a shock for me to realise that for many in third world countries hospitals mean the end of your life, meaning that you have to be so so sick to be taken to one and in most cases that person ends up dying. Sue was lucky enough to see a few operations taking place and could sit with an reassure the nervous family who for some had travelled for 4 days on foot to get there. Sue said she could see the family members in the waiting rooms with such fear on their faces thinking the worst. I guess it will take time for these new hospital facilities to be accepted as a place where ‘miracles’ can happen and not a place to be feared.
In 2010 The Foundation trained 12,961 medical and support staff, preformed 194,903 eye operations, took delivery of $3,475,629 dollars worth of equipment, did 1,310,226 eye screenings and constructed and renovated 41 medical facilities.
Sue said that The Foundation is active in around 18 countries. Thank you Fred Hollows Foundation we are so pleased to have been able to contribute in some small way to your amazing success in the last year.
Belinda
