Australia's first Aboriginal Ophthalmologist, Associate Professor Kris Rallah-Baker, recently joined the successful Indigenous and Remote Eye Service (IRIS) with his first cataract surgery list delivered in Darwin in a collaboration between The Deadly Vision Centre, Darwin Private Hospital and Vanguard Health.
The IRIS program - a $3million Closing the Gap initiative of the federal government - delivered more than 400 cataract procedures from July 2023 to May 2024 for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people across the Northern Territory.
The program began in 2011 under then Health Minister Nicola Roxon and has grown in capacity and coverage to now support 400 cataract procedures annually across the Northern Territory.
Associate Professor Rallah-Baker told National Indigenous Times: "With the generous assistance and support of the IRIS Programme, we were able to deliver the first fully Indigenous-led ophthalmology surgical service to a group of Indigenous patients."
"This service demonstrated a wonderful example of self-determined health care achieved through a collaborative partnership between Indigenous and non-Indigenous organisations," he said.
Delivered by a Brisbane health care provider, Vanguard Health, IRIS since its inception has successfully seen thousands of First Nations people treated by a range of eye care clinicians who often travel from Australian capital cities to participate and contribute to this critical closing the gap initiative.
The program is on track and on budget to deliver 800 cataract procedures over a 24-month period FY 2023-25.
Vanguard Health chief executive Tim Gallagher said "with the feedback we have from ACCHOs (Aboriginal Community-Controlled Health Organisations) and health services saying this is a great on-demand model that is flexible and integrates seamlessly into our community "… "we need to ask, is it something that we could expand to include other specialties and health care areas of need by just using the same model and framework?".
Vanguard Health is an Australian-owned Brisbane-based private healthcare provider, started in 2010 with a mission to support better public healthcare access for all Australians regardless of where they live by supporting public health providers get access to the clinical staff they need.
Vanguard is currently contracted by the federal government, and the NSW, Queensland, West Australian and Northern Territory governments in a range of areas to provide nurses, doctors and integrated elective surgery service delivery across regional, rural and remote public hospitals.
