The Australia Bali Memorial Eye Centre Provides Hope For Bali's Blind

TABANAN, INDONESIA - SEPTEMBER 03: An elderly women from the village of Timur has an eye examination with the Australia Bali Mobile Eye Clinic service on September 02, 2008 in Tabanan, Bali, Indonesia. The Australia Bali Memorial Eye Centre is a living memorial to the 202 people who died in the Bali bombings on October 12, 2002 and is a gift from the people of Australia to the people of Indonesia. It is funded by the Australian Government and AusAID through the Bali Rehabilitation Fund, and was handed over in a ceremony on July 2, 2004. Other facilities at Sanglah Hospital and Denpasar's Indera Hospital which are benefitting from the Bali Memorial assistance package include the Australia-Bali Memorial Eye Centre and its two mobile outreach eye clinics. The travelling clinics provide a range of services including diagnostic examination and treatment, surgery and free glasses, providing hope to the 50,000 plus people in Bali alone affected by operational blindness. The sight of most of these cataract cases can be saved by a simple 20 minute operation, as pioneered by the late Fred Hollows. The centre received over AUD5 million of the AUD10.5 million pledged by the Australian Government to the Bali health system following the terrorist attack which stretched the Sanglah Hospital's resources. (Photo by Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images)