FRED HOLLOWS: An autobiography with Peter Corris (book)

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By Peter Corris.
John Kerr Pty Ltd 1991.

When there is work to do, Fred Hollows is in a hurry. He’s no saint, doesn’t pretend to be one. In fact, he’s as rough a diamond as they come. Tom Kenneally called him ‘the wild colonial boy of Australian surgery’ and there are plenty of bureaucrats, mean minds, too hard-merchants, time-servers and authoritarians who know what Kenneally means by that. For the likes of Fred Hollows, the world isn’t up to scratch while 3.5 million Africans go blind each year, avoidably for the most part. You don’t talk about it, there are quite enough bemoaners around. You get stuck in and fix it.

A bit of money, energy, training and a plastic lens factory was needed, so he got busy, met the people on the spot, showed them what to do, raised a few bob and is bloody well going to give Africans the means to look after themselves - as soon as possible. The Hollows approach tends to cut these big, daunting problems down to size. The ‘roads’ Fred Hollows travelled in Eritrea were bumpy, rocky and uncomfortable. The operating theatre he worked in was a cave. MiG jets overhead didn’t help matters either. Clinics were held in dry creek beds. But he mended people’s sight, got to know the problems, learnt from the clever and resourceful Eritrean people and figured it out. The next step took him to corporate boardrooms, television studios, political offices and to setting this account of his life.

Fred Hollows: an Autobiography replenishes one’s sense of what is possible.

A documentary film about Fred Hollows, FOR ALL THE WORLD TO SEE, is also available on DVD from Ronin Films - www.roninfilms.com.au/feature/521.html

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