LEADERSHIP INSPIRING CHANGE
The Parliamentary Friends Group for Eye Health and Vision Care is an opportunity to engage with leaders inspiring change. The 2015 March event was Co-Chaired by Mr Andrew Laming MP and Mr Stephen Jones MP. The event was attended by Vision 2020 members and over 20 parliamentarians including the Hon Bronwyn Bishop MP. Ms Bishop is the current Speaker of the House of Representatives.
RANZCO Fellow, Dr Hessom Razavi, gave an inspiring speech about the need for leaders to have compassion and to take action. Hessom was born in Iran and migrated to Australia with his family in 1989. Community-orientated parents heighted his awareness of inequality and his passion for contributing to the self-empowerment of disadvantaged groups.
Hessom has actively worked in Western Australia providing outreach clinics and surgery to regional, remote and Indigenous communities. Indigenous Australians go blind six times as often as non-indigenous Australians. But in most places, Aboriginal patients have the poorest access to specialist eye services. Much of this blindness is due to diabetic retinopathy, of which around 90 per cent is avoidable, through safe and effective screening and treatment. This year, Hessom is completing a fellowship with the Centre for Eye Research Australia.
Other inspiring speeches were delivered by; Brandon Ah Tong from Vision 2020 Australia, Dr Jessica Gallagher a female Paralympian dual medalist, Samuel Kiom a Senior Manager at Papua New Guinea Eye Care and Shannon Peckham the first indigenous female to graduate from optometry.
The event was attended by RANZCO President Dr Brad Horsbourgh, RANZCO CEO David Andrews, Dr Iain Dunlop, Professor Hugh Taylor and Suzanne Lyon.
BLOG IMAGE: DR HESSOM RAZAVI AND HON BRONWYN BISHOP MP