Closing the gap in eye care

BIENCO consortium Project Lead, Professor Gerard Sutton is helping close the gap in Indigenous communities by providing faster and more affordable access to life-changing eye care services.

Eye health experts from the BIENCO consortium are working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to bring much-needed care and services to regional and remote areas.

In a united effort with the Sydney Eye Hospital, the Sydney Eye Hospital Foundation, and the Prince of Wales Hospital, Professor Sutton is supporting the critical eye care needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who would ordinarily experience significant delays in receiving care.

“In Australia, the challenge lies in unequal healthcare access across different regions which particularly impacts Indigenous patients,” said BIENCO Project Lead, Professor and Sydney Eye Hospital Foundation Vice President,  Gerard Sutton.

“For example, while someone in Sydney’s affluent suburbs may undergo cataract surgery within two to three weeks, the wait in metropolitan hospitals can extend to a year followed by even greater challenges in rural and remote areas of up to two to three years wait.

“That, in my opinion, is unacceptable.”

This lack of access to timely care contributes to rates of blindness and vision loss among Indigenous people being three times that of other Australians. Formerly known as the Bicentennial Clinic, the Gadigal Eye Centre is an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander eye clinic which will be located in the South Eastern Sydney Local Health District (SESLHD). The hub seeks to address this inequality by catering specifically for the cultural needs of Indigenous Australians.

Developed in partnership with the Aboriginal Liaison Unit of South Eastern Sydney Local Health District (SESLHD), funding from the Sydney Eye Hospital Foundation will support ophthalmology services at Sydney Eye Hospital/ Sydney Hospital and Prince of Wales Hospital to lead eye services and the virtual capability that will provide accessible eye health services to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients. Working in partnership with primary care providers in remote communities in NSW such as Moree, the specialist retinal cameras installed in collaboration with outback clinics connect to the Gadigal Eye Centre and are used by non-ophthalmic specialists such as GPs and nurses to provide care guided by expert advice from experienced ophthalmologists in the field such as Professor Sutton who are located at the metropolitan outreach centres. This program plays a vital role in emergency  and tertiary referrals for critical care from regional centres via the Sydney Eye Hospital’s Gadigal Eye Centre.

(Left to right back): Prof Gerard Sutton, Linda Fagan. (Left to right front): Dr Pauline Rumma, Jennie Barry, A/Prof Andrew Chang, Prof Peter McCluskey, Dr John Gregory-Roberts. Image: Sydney Eye Hospital Foundation.

In addition to the eye-saving equipment, the Gadigal Eye Centre will serve as a new culturally sensitive clinic for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients through a welcoming and safe environment, clinically and culturally, honouring the rich history of the Gadigal people through landscaping, art and delivery of care.