Indigenous blindness gap halved

The project is a creation of the Indigenous Eye Health Unit at the University of Melbourne. Its aim is to ‘close the gap for vision’ by eliminating known differences in Indigenous eye health when compared to mainstream Australia.Speaking at the 2016 Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists (RANZCO) Annual Scientific Congress, Professor Hugh Taylor Laureate Professor and the Harold Mitchell Chair of Indigenous Eye Health, at the University of Melbourne, said that progress is being made on every single recommendation in the roadmap. A lot of work has started, and the National Eye Health Survey has shown that the gap for blindness has been halved; dropping from six times the rates of non-indigenous people to three times, so that’s really good progress. But clearly there’s more work that needs to be done to actually finish the job, Prof Taylor told Insight.The project has currently identified 42 its that need to be addressed in order to ‘close the gap’, 11 of which have now been fully implented.But despite these positive outcomes, Prof Taylor believes there is still much more that can be done by both the Australian Government and ophthalmic professionals.He said that one of the key areas requiring focus is the provision of sufficient visiting eye specialists, whether that be for optometric or ophthalmic consultations.Trachoma rates have also taken a fall, from 21% in 2008 to 4.6% in 2015. There’s a clear commitment from the government to eliminate trachoma by the year 2020, so hopefully we’ll be able to close the gap for vision by [then] as well, Prof Taylor said.The recent roadmap update shows that the project is on track to completely closing the gap in Indigenous eye health within the next four years.