The Melbourne Newsroom

Researchers from the University of Melbourne say $70 million could ‘close the gap’ on Indigenous eye health, which unlike other health conditions is preventable and treatable.

The significant eye health and vision problems experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people can be eliminated to bring us one step closer to closing the gap in Indigenous health, according to two new reports from the University of Melbourne and the Australian Institute of Indigenous Studies.

A leading Melbourne University health expert says one of the main benefits of the NT Intervention has been getting Indigenous health back on the agenda as a major social justice issue in Australia.

Professor Hugh Taylor, who is Harold Mitchell Chair of Indigenous Eye Health at the University of Melbourne, began working alongside Fred Hollows in the seventies, and has for 30 years been striving to eradicate trachoma, a treatable eye disease causing blindness which disproportionately affects Indigenous Australians.