Since its inception ICEE has run programmes in more than 40 countries around the world.

One of its longest running and most successful eye care programmes is in Australia.

It is incredible that in Australia, a country of 20 million people and richly served by almost 4,000 optometrists and ophthalmologists, Aboriginal Australians are ten times more likely to suffer preventable blindness than non-Aboriginal people.

ICEE is ensuring that eye care services and eye care training are made available to Aboriginal people to help counter this problem.

The ICEE Aboriginal eye care and blindness prevention programmes are part of a ongoing collaboration between the Aboriginal Health & Medical Research Council (AHMRC) – the peak body for Aboriginal health care in NSW – and ICEE, to provide improved eye care services to the Aboriginal community.

Since its inception in 1999, working through the AHMRC and Aboriginal Medical Services (AHMS) the programme has provided some 15,000 eye examinations and supplied spectacles to more than 13,000 people at no cost. A further 1,000 have been referred and treated by various co-operating health professionals and hospitals.

In order to provide these eye care services, ICEE has relied on its own staff including 3 full-time optometrists and 40 co-operating optometrists who work on a casual basis throughout NSW. Key to the structure and success of the programme is that ICEE works with the AMS and has established services in 80 AMS controlled ye care clinics that are run by the Aboriginal community. ICEE ensures the availability of optometrists to staff the eye clinics and the AMS provides the logistics and ensures that patients are notified of the service.

The eye care programme has been successful as a result of co-operation and assistance from AMS staff and boards, rural and urban optometrists, the NSW Department of Community Services, Royal Flying Doctor Service, NSW Department of Health’s Rural Aerial Health Service, Commonwealth Department of Health and Ageing, and Vision Care NSW.

It is estimated that there are more than 145,000 Aboriginal people in NSW alone. At least 40% of Aboriginal people (10% of children, 20% of adults and older adults) require eye care to see effectively and to prevent blindness from such conditions as diabetes, glaucoma and in some parts of Australia trachoma. As a result of the lack of access it is estimated that at least 30,000 Aboriginal people in NSW have not had eye care.