A new eye care centre to be built for the Fred Hollows Foundation in Solomon Islands will mean the Pacific can do 30 percent more eye operations each year.
The 3.2 million US dollar facility is being funded by the New Zealand Government.
Photo: RNZ
It will mean up to 11 thousand Solomon Islanders annually will have access to eye operations while staff will be trained to extend out reach services.
The executive director of the Fred Hollows Foundation NZ, Andrew Bell, says the clinic at the National Referral Hospital will upgrade substandard facilities to state of the art.
"Where not only are they going to have the ability to operate four days a week but they also going to be able to up the quality and the level and the intensity of the work that they can do, so the patients that present with more difficult cases will also be able to get the attention they deserve."
Fred Hollows' Andrew Bell.