HOW ONE CATARACT OPERATION IN HASTINGS FUNDS TWO IN THE PACIFIC ISLANDS

The Eye Surgery is a certified B-Corporation. Most businesses are legally structured around one obligation: money. B-Corp certification asks something different. A business must formally commit — in it’s legal governing documents, not just in it’s marketing — to considering it’s impact on it’s workers, it’s community and the environment, alongside it’s financial performance. That commitment is then independently assessed and scored against formal standards, not self-reported. Think of it the way Fair Trade works for coffee: the label means an outside body has checked the claims and found them to hold. Recertification is required every three years. It cannot be held passively.

For every cataract operation performed here, two are funded in the Pacific Islands through the Fred Hollows Foundation NZ. The Foundation works to eliminate avoidable blindness in the Pacific — restoring sight to people for whom surgery would otherwise be out of reach. One operation you have here funds two of theirs. Bilateral cataract surgery funds four.

The Eye Surgery provides specialised services in glaucoma, cataract and dry eyes. This includes specialised equipment and techniques being used, even within eye care.

One part of glaucoma care is assessment of the optic disc: where a large nerve joins with the back of the eye. The Eye Surgery has a specialised camera that takes very high resolution photos of this region in 3D, allowing detailed assessment and record keeping. From this it has built up an online library of images at www.glaucoma4k.org. Pictures used must be of very high clarity and have consent from the patient for use and, along with a few normal eyes for comparison, show clinical signs associated with glaucoma and some other eye conditions. The website has some extra scans and instructions turning it into a teaching resource for healthcare professionals which is free to use, requires no accounts and has been viewed from over 100 countries. This technology has also allowed The Eye Surgery to partner with the Hawkes Bay public hospital to accredit optometrists for enrolment in the Shared Glaucoma Care Scheme, increasing capacity and allowing patients to be seen in the community.

Many advances have been made in the field of Minimally Invasive Glaucoma Surgery in recent years. Several types of new operation have been developed. Some use small implants put into the eye, but these can be very expensive. The Eye Surgery introduced an alternative operation (ab interno trabeculotomy using a Tanito Hook), which was developed in Japan, and has equivalent results but requires no expensive implants. It performed New Zealand’s first 100 cases in Hastings, presented the results to glaucoma specialists from Australasia, worked with Southern Cross insurance company to make it available to their patients in New Zealand, and donated equipment to Fiji, allowing equivalent care in the Pacific Islands.

The Eye Surgery is privileged to work in New Zealand, and to be in Hawkes Bay in particular, and as a result of its development being shaped locally has been able to share ideas with a wider community where possible.

Precision care that's personal.