The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists (RANZCO) has issued a statement reflecting on the 50th anniversary of the National Trachoma and Eye Health Program, as Australia marks National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s Day under the theme ‘Living Our Truth’.
Falling on 4 August, the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children’s Day theme carries a truth 50 years in the making: the World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed Australia has eliminated trachoma as a public health problem, becoming the 30th country in the world to do so. This success leaves a twofold legacy: improved eye health and vision for generations of First Nations children and an important lesson about the power of community in driving real and lasting change.
In 1976, the National Trachoma and Eye Health Program (NTEHP) was established as a partnership between the Royal Australian College of Ophthalmologists (RANZCO’s predecessor body), the National Aboriginal and Islander Health Organisation, the Commonwealth Department of Health, and Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services. Over the following years, teams, working closely with local communities and Aboriginal health workers, visited 465 remote communities and screened more than 100,000 people, uncovering a disease of poverty most Australians didn’t know existed in their own country.
This success leaves a twofold legacy: improved eye health and vision for generations of First Nations children and an important lesson about the power of community
National screening ultimately found 17% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children had active trachoma – a disease of poverty already rare elsewhere in the developed world – with some outback communities averaging 64%. The findings galvanised a sustained, community-led response that has continued for five decades.
An Important Public Health Initiatives
Dr David Moran, College Fellow and now retired ophthalmologist was, at the time, the Program Epidemiologist for the NTEHP. He led one of the two clinical field teams for 18 months and personally examined between 10,000 and 15,000 people during the fieldwork. Additionally, he was heavily involved in data processing, planning for ongoing services, and the authorship of the final Report to the Australian Government. That report remains a compelling and singular record of one of Australia’s most important public health initiatives.
Dr Moran reflects: “This program was an important public health initiative, highly influential in the ongoing healthcare of remote Australian communities and of course especially for Indigenous communities. How extraordinary that our College in 1976 committed itself to a task where more than half of our team members at any time, and many of our permanent staff, were Indigenous. We carried the Aboriginal Flag and flew it at every clinic, helping to spread that now-iconic symbol of Indigenous solidarity. How moving and shocking to be present as one of our team members, who had been a stolen child, was reunited with her mother near the banks of the Fitzroy River. It’s all long ago, but so close in memory. I often think that ‘we were few, very few; we were a band of brothers and sisters’ forged in comradeship. It was very good way for me to start a career as an ophthalmologist.”
RANZCO acknowledges that elimination does not mean the work is finished. Vision impairment remains three times more common among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians than non-Indigenous Australians, according to the Australian Eye and Ear Health Survey.
RANZCO continues to work closely with First Nations-led organisations including the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (NACCHO) and the First Nations Eye Health Alliance, to ensure the next generation of children grows up with equitable access to eye health.
