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. Vandeluer is involved in the ATLASS program (Australia-Timor Leste Program of Assistance for specialised services). This program began in Oct 2006 and is planned to run until June 2011.

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 January 2009. 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 secondary and tertiary care to their peoples. The Pacific Islands Project (PIP) therefore aims to improve population health through the delivery of tertiary health services in Pacific Island Countries to include:

• The provision a range of clinical services to the PICs through the deployment of specialist medical teams;
• the transfer clinical skills, where possible, to local counterparts; and
• the delivery of specific teaching sessions as required or requested

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.

PIP visiting surgical teams and/or specialists endeavour to provide practical care that employs therapies and procedures that are safe, inexpensive, and that can be maintained through materials and supplies that are commonly available.

The PIP is funded by the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) and managed by the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS).

Dr. Vandeleur has been involved in this program for a few years. The last trip took place in early January 2009. Olwyn Lawlor, one of the optometrists at BNEC also travelled to Kiribati on this trip to assist in pre and post operative patient care. The trip was a very successful with approximately 320 patients examined in outpatients over 6 days and nearly 100 surgical procedures were performed for cataracts and diabetic retinopathy. The next trip is scheduled for over Christmas/New year of 2009/2010.