$15m man moved to tears by each eye op

Mike Lynskey spends most of his time away from the frontline eye doctors in poor countries who restore sight to people blinded by cataracts.

The Sydney-based worldwide chief executive of the Fred Hollows Foundation travels the corporate world raising $15 million a year to pay for the hundreds of thousands of minor operations which restore sight.

For blind patients in mostly Third World countries, the 20-minute cataract operation borders on miraculous.

But Mr Lynskey said that after living in the corporate and fundraising world, seeing a blind person getting his or her sight back was about as humbling and emotional as it got.

"I focus on raising a few million dollars and you tend to get caught up with that.

"But when I see someone get their sight back, I never fail to have tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat," he said on a visit to Auckland last week.

"It's a very powerful thing to happen and you think: 'This is what it's all about'."

Mr Lynskey has been chief executive of the foundation since 1993, the year the co-founder, New Zealand eye doctor Professor Fred Hollows, died.

He said New Zealanders were traditionally huge supporters of the work of the foundation, partly due to the New Zealand connection and partly because they appreciated the no-nonsense approach the foundation had.

"They like the can-do spirit. In the midst of so many things that are not going very well in the world, this is one thing that can work. It is a nice thing to fix people's eyes."

Mr Lynskey said some of the international companies the foundation worked with were very "risk-averse" and conformist and as the foundation grew, the pressure also grew to become more conservative.

"We have to watch it. We make it plain we are not an entirely safe organisation. We go to difficult places and we do difficult things."

Mr Lynskey said the foundation took credit for forcing down the international price of an intra-ocular lens by opening its own manufacturing laboratory in the East African country of Eritrea. Two more laboratories followed in Nepal.

Several years ago the price of an intra-ocular lens supplied by large international companies was $300.

Since the foundation opened its own factories it had dropped to $7, he said.

Because the price had dropped so dramatically and was likely to stay down, the foundation had scrapped plans to open another manufacturing laboratory in South Africa.

He said the foundation worked with local people in poverty-stricken countries throughout the world to give them the skills to deal with blindness.

This year the foundation performed its one-millionth operation to restore sight to a person blinded by cataracts.

By the end of this year the figure is likely to be close to double that in 29 countries as the price of the operation and the lens continue to drop.

New Zealanders donate about $1m a year to the foundation, much of it through the "Five Fivers for Fred" nationwide fundraising campaign.

- NZPA