It is estimated more than one million people in the world can see today because of initiatives introduced by the late professor Fred Hollows.

Fred, working with young children overseas. Photo by Michael Amendolia.

But many people don't know it was during his four years spent at Tauranga Hospital that Fred made his first significant move towards becoming an eye doctor.

Born in April 1929, Fred worked at Tauranga Hospital from 1958-1959, under the assistance of eye surgeon DR R.E Tingey, who let Fred assist with operations.

Fred completed an ‘eye term' as part of his initial medical training, and within a year at Tauranga Hospital learned how to safely remove a cataract.

Following this, Fred took a position at Wellington Hospital as an Ophthalmologic Registrar. In 1961 he went to Moorfields Eye Hospital in England to study Ophthalmology. He then did postgraduate work in Wales and the United Kingdom, before moving to Australia in 1965.

Fred went on to become an internationally-acclaimed eye surgeon and social justice activist, who championed the right of all people to access high quality and affordable eye care.

The Fred Hollows Foundation was set up in 1992, and carries on Fred's work in 30 developing countries across Asia, Africa and the Pacific.

The work of the foundation restores sight to the needlessly blind, and trains local eye health specialists to provide eye care services in their own communities. In the last five years alone, the foundation has performed nearly one million sight-restoring operations and treatments, and trained more than 38,000 local eye health specialists.

Fred died in 1993 in Sydney, Australia, at the age of 63 years.