The Love Your Eyes 2022 Tactile Art Competition winners were announced at the Copthorne Hotel Wellington Oriental Bay on Wednesday 12 October. The annual Love Your Eyes campaign aims to raise awareness about eye health care in Aotearoa New Zealand, so that more people will get their eyes checked regularly and to encourage the Government to make eye health care a priority.

The winners of the Love Your Eyes 2022 Tactile Art Competition are:

The International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB) wants everyone to love their eyes. As part of this year’s Love Your Eyes campaign, the IAPB encouraged people worldwide to get their eyes tested. The goal was to conduct 5 million eye tests in the month leading up to World Sight Day on 13 October.

On 29 September 2022, Eye Health Aotearoa took the petition for a National Eye Health Survey right to Parliament’s front door!

Listen to Radio New Zealand National's Wallace Chapman speak with Veeran Morar - optometrist and bus driver! from the University of Auckland - about the Vision Bus Aotearoa, New Zealand's first mobile optometry service.

Eye Health Aotearoa Take Their Campaign About The Importance Of Eye Health To Parliament’s Front Door

• Eye Health Aotearoa (EHA) hosted an event at Parliament to launch the “Eye Care in Aotearoa New Zealand 2022 – Eye Care Situation Analysis Tool (ESCAT)” report. The report can be downloaded from the Eye Health Aotearoa website

• EHA also hosted another event at the New Zealand Parliament, providing partial eye checks to MPs and their staff as part of the global Love Your Eyes campaign. The Love Your Eyes campaign encourages individuals to take care of their own eye health whilst bringing attention to over a billion people worldwide who have vision loss and do not have access to the eye care services they need.

• New Zealand is leading the way. Eye Health Aotearoa’s screening at the New Zealand Parliament is the first of a number of screenings taking place in parliaments around the world.

Photo: Hon Peeni Henare, Associate Minister of Health (Māori Health) ; Dr Liz Craig MP and Dr Elizabeth Kerekere, Co-chairs of the Parliamentary Friends of Eye Health; Renata Watene, Joint author of the “Eye care in Aotearoa New Zealand 2022” Report; Judy Small, Chair of the RNZFB Board, and Drew Keys from the IAPB; with Eye Health Aotearoa Trustees.

A New Zealand Income Insurance Scheme.

This is an opportunity to have your say by participating in the consultation about the proposed scheme.

Guide Dog Handlers are now empowered by a new tool to report access barriers within their community!

[Dan Shepherd and guide dog navigating rubbish bin]

A new report from Vision Research International shows the total costs of vision loss in New Zealand, including the total for lost well-being has increased to $3.74 billion in 2021, an increase of 33.6% since 2009. The economic and financial cost alone has escalated to $765 million over the past 12 years – an increase of 91.2%.

Eye Health Aotearoa Trust is New Zealand’s peak advocacy body on eye health and vision care. Our vision is for accessible, comprehensive eye health services for all New Zealanders. Our mission is to partner with Government to reform the New Zealand eye health system to prevent avoidable blindness.

As the Chief Executive of Blind Low Vision NZ, John Mulka knows that vision loss can have a devastating impact on thousands of lives. Not only those experiencing vision loss, but those who love and care about them. John said,

“Our research shows that people with vision loss are far less likely to be employed, three times as likely to experience clinical depression and twice as likely to fall.”

During the 2017 election campaign, New Zealand First leader, and soon-to-be deputy prime minister, Winston Peters promised to provide free eye health tests for the over 65s. Nearly $13 million, rising to $61.7 million a year from 2021/22, was earmarked as part of the health allocation in the 2020 budget, but little detail and no start date were given.

[Story by Drew Jones. Originally published at Eye On Optics www.nzoptics.co.nz/articles/archive/free-eye-checks-peeling-back-a-broken-promise/# ]

A paper presented at "Thinking Through Books" the 2012 conference of the Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand, 14-17 November, Dunedin NZ.

On 20 December 2009 I was reading in bed when my left eye went blurry. "Time to put the light out," I thought.

Next morning it was still blurry. I had lost the central vision in my left eye, suddenly and permanently. Then the vision in my right eye began to deteriorate.

Mary Fisher navigates the world differently. She has aniridia, a degenerative genetic condition primarily affecting her sight. With a little help from friends at the Department of Conservation (DOC), she’s been able to experience nature and the environment in a new, more engaging way.

The Eye Health Aotearoa Trust (EHA) is adding its voice to the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness’ (IAPB) call for improved eye health for all. EHA is proud to join IAPB, the overarching alliance for the global eye care sector as they are already supporting EHA’s efforts to improve New Zealanders’ access to quality and equitable eye health services.

60,000 people in NZ are living with glaucoma but don’t know it. This poses a risk to them, and others, as they are more likely to have falls or accidents due to what Ophthalmologists describe as ‘negative sight’.

The aging population, heart disease & diabetes numbers on the rise in NZ makes Glaucoma NZ’s annual symposium extremely timely. It is a unique opportunity to learn from a panel of medical experts on an eye disease impacting more than 115,000 Kiwis, with another 60,000 people unaware they are living with it.

Tens of thousands of New Zealanders with diabetes are missing out on free health checks that could save their eyesight, writes Nicholas Jones. Imagine the terror of waking to find yourself completely blind. When it happened to Anne Niulesa, she scrambled to find some light.

[Story by Nicholas Jones. Originally published in the Weekend Herald, 3 April 2021]