The Fred Hollows Foundation (FHF) from Australia, in co-operation with Da Nang’s Opthalmology hospital, will provide free eye surgeries for 50 children living in the city, and an eye screening programme which will last for 6 months.

Children at an orphanage in Da Nang. Kids with eye disease and defects will get free surgeries in a charity programme with funding from the Fred Hollows Foundation. — VNS Photo Cong Thanh

The total funding for the project is 724 million VND (32,000 US$), which the city said will also help to upgrade the hospital’s IT and medical services to provide better treatment for local residents.

In 2016, the foundation and Standard Chartered Bank funded a free eye screening project for more than 7,500 primary school students in total in Da Nang from 2016 - 2018.

The project also helped provide eye care training to nearly 7,000 parents, teachers and health staff in four districts, as well as free eye surgeries for 300 underprivileged students.

FHF also promised to fund an additional 3.3 million$ to help Viet Nam with blindness prevention, as part of its efforts to meet international vision commitments to rid the world of avoidable blindness by 2020.

The FHF was founded in 1992 by eye surgeon Fred Hollows, and focuses on treating and preventing blindness and other vision problems. It operates across the Pacific region, including Australia, South and Southeast Asia, and Africa.

(Source: VNS/ DA NANG Today)