Brisbane North Eye Centre

Dr. Vandeleur is involved in trips to East Timor and Kiribati where he volunteers his skills to help improve the eye health of the people of these developing nations. The main procedures performed are cataract operations.

East Timor Program

Dr. Vandeleur is involved in the ATLASS program (Australia-Timor Leste Program of Assistance for Sepcialised Services). This program began in October 2006 and is continuing to make a difference to the communities there.

There are 4 main objectives of the program:

• Long Term Training, Mentoring and Capacity Building Objective- To strengthen the general surgical, anaesthetic and peri-operative nursing capacity and clinical skills through a combination of in-country mentoring, short courses, and out of country specialist training.
• Short Term Specialist Support and Planning Objective- To support surgical and other clinical care through shot term specialist visits and attachments, including to through outreach to rural and regional communities.
• Institutional Linkages Facility Objective- To support surgical and other clinical care and support services through strategic linkages with Australian and other international institutions.
• Program Management and Monitoring Objective - To manage the Program effectively and efficiently, and maintain a program office at HNGV (East Timor’s main hospital)

Dr. Vandeleur's most recent trip to East Timor took place in February 2013. The program is run in assistance with the Royal Australian College of Surgeons (RACS). Dr. Bill Glasson another Brisbane based Ophthalmologist is also involved in the Timor program and is pictured below.

Kiribati Program

There is a shortage of trained and skilled local specialists in many of the Pacific Island Countries (PICs). This shortage severely reduces the countries' capacity to deliver essential eye care to their peoples. The Pacific Islands Project (PIP) aims to improve population health through the delivery of health services in Pacific Island Countries. Countries included in the Project are - the Cook Islands, Fiji, the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Nauru. The PIP is funded by AusAID and managed by the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS).

Dr. Vandeleur has been involved in this program for over a decade. The most recent trip took place in January 2013. Bill Watson and Paul Carey, optometrists at BNEC, also travelled to Kiribati on this trip to assist in running the outpatient clinic and pre and post operative patient care. The trip was very successful with over 500 patients examined in outpatients over 6 days, over 150 pairs of spectacles dispensed and more than 130 surgical procedures were performed for cataracts and diabetic retinopathy. The next trip is scheduled for January 2014