Fred Hollows

Born Frederick Cossom Hollows on 9 April 1929 in Dunedin, New Zealand to parents Joseph and Clarice (Marshall) Hollows, Fred was one of four boys. He was schooled in New Zealand then after receiving his BA degree from Victoria University of Wellington went on to study medicine at Otago Medical School in Wellington before going to Moorfields Eye Hospital in England to study ophthalmology in 1961. Following some post-graduate work in Wales he then moved to Australia in 1965 where he became associate professor of ophthalmology at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.

While working in Sydney, Fred became aware of the need for an Aboriginal health service and set about establishing the first Aboriginal Medical Service. In 2005, there were more than 60 of these health services throughout Australia. It was through his work with the service and his travels to remote aboriginal settlements that Fred became aware of some of the serious health issues facing aboriginal people - particularly trachoma and other avoidable eye diseases. The fact that these diseases were easily avoided, often went completely untreated and resulted in blindness shocked Fred and so began his life's work. Fred didn't think enough was being done for Aboriginal health. He was very outspoken on this issue.

"It is appalling. It is much worse than white health was in the worst times of the depression. It is appalling by third world standards."

From 1976 to 1978, his teams screened 100,000 people, 60% of whom were of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander heritage. Because of this program, the rate of curable blindness among these communities was halved.

Fred then heard about a civil war in Eritrea (Africa) and how there were no eye doctors to treat the people who were suffering. At the time, Eritrea was one of the world's poorest countries and once again, Fred could not just stand by and do nothing.

'Each year in Africa about two and a half million people go blind...and they just go blind... they sit around in their huts,' he said at the time. So again he mobilised a team to go over and help.

By the 1980s, Fred had extended his campaign for treating avoidable eye disease and was soon travelling all over the world. A great believer in helping people to help themselves, Fred set up eye clinics in some of the world's poorest countries. At these clinics he not only treated people suffering from eye diseases, but also taught local doctors how to treat these diseases so they could continue his work.

As word of his work spread, more and more Australians volunteered their time and donated money so Fred could continue to establish his clinics in developing countries around the world. His dream of setting up an eye lens factory in Eritrea became a reality when Australians donated more then $6 million to the cause.