This year’s New Zealand #LoveYourEyes campaign, led by Eye Health Aotearoa (EHA) and supported by the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB), is calling on the government to urgently conduct New Zealand’s first eye health survey.
EHA will be drumming up awareness of the petition calling for the eye health survey, launched early last year, and encouraging the entire eye health community to sign, said Anna Crane, EHA trustee and general manager for Macular Degeneration New Zealand. “Our aim is to present the petition to parliament on World Sight Day on 13 October 2022.”
The news about the renewed push for New Zealand’s first ever eye health survey came at the same time as Australia launched its second eye health survey on 3rd March, World Hearing Day, to celebrate the survey’s new ear health component. Building on the work of Australia’s first eye health survey in 2016, the new ‘Australian Eye and Ear Health Survey’ will examine 5,000 Australians, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, over a period of two years. “Findings from the study will contribute to Australia’s commitment to eradicate avoidable blindness in fulfilment of the United Nations General Assembly resolution, Vision for Everyone,” said the Australian investigation team, led by Professor Paul Mitchell, from Sydney’s Westmead Institute for Medical Research.
To build awareness of the need for the survey in New Zealand, EHA is also launching a tactile art competition among community groups, with the winning entries from each competition announced and displayed in Wellington on World Sight Day, said Crane. More information about this will be released in the next few months, she said, adding that EHA will be asking for eyecare practitioner support to encourage their communities to participate and get behind the survey push. A July symposium is also in the pipeline to discuss eye health in Aotearoa, she said.
For more, see www.eyehealthaotearoa.org.nz and www.eyeonoptics.co.nz/articles/archive/free-eye-checks-peeling-back-a-broken-promise
