How we work
Volunteer Australian Practitioners
Working with Australian medical practitioners who generously volunteer their time and skill and in-country specialist surgeons and staff, Vision Beyond AUS funds and supports free eye surgery at established local hospitals and independent rural clinics committed to providing free care for those living below the poverty line. Vision Beyond AUS provides surgical and post-operative consumables and any necessary medical/surgical equipment, and undertakes local facility refurbishment, to enhance their capacity to effectively treat the needy in their community.
Every Dollar Saves Someone’s Sight
All the money Vision Beyond AUS is able to raise goes directly to saving someone’s sight and changing their lives forever. Vision Beyond AUS still covers the costs of sending a few dedicated Australian medical personnel and technicians to these regions, because they are determined to continue this valuable work. However, in most cases surgeons will pay their travel costs, knowing that every penny raised should go to saving sight. They donate their skill, care and time, as they report that they are actually the ones who return home having had a life-changing experience, not the patients whose sight they restore and who can live again.
Flying The Flag
Every hospital and clinic proudly displays the banner for VBA featuring the Rotary International Wheel, the Australian flag and the flag of the host country. All VBA has to do is raise these banners, saying that a free clinic is to be held, and the patients appear. Within days there are scores of needy people waiting to be seen by the surgeons, to be assessed for surgery or eye care.
Help In Even The Most Remote Places
In most cases the poor find their way to the clinic, but in some areas medical personnel head out in buses to the remote villages, assess the patients’ needs there, and then bring the patients who can be cured back to the clinic for the surgery. In three hospitals in India the patients from these remote villages are offered a place to sleep for the night and food, and leave the Vision Beyond AUS clinic able to see and start their lives anew. They cannot believe that they receive all this for free and they know it is all being funded by the generosity of Australians.
