Flying surgical teams into Indigenous communities for short visits to perform cataract operations, a practice pioneered by Fred Hollows, is preventing the development of long term services that would better serve those in need.
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Three leading eye specialists, including the Fred Hollows Foundation medical director, say that although these yearly surgical blitzes solve short term backlogs, and make surgeons and funders "feel good", they leave other patients waiting months for surgery until the next blitz comes to town.
While intensive cataract surgery initiatives are justified in developing countries, a country like Australia, with a sophisticated health system, had the capacity to establish permanent services that could treat people as they needed surgery.
"Blitzes usually receive government and private funding, so the investors feel good that something is being done and they obtain positive publicity," wrote the authors, in the Medical Journal of Australia.
"But the patients who turn up the next week do not feel so good," they wrote.
Lead author and chair of Indigenous Eye Health at the University of Melbourne, Hugh Taylor, said the article was not aimed at the foundation, but at state and commonwealth governments.
"They really need to look at long-term solutions," Professor Taylor said.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are six times more likely to go blind than non-Indigenous Australians, mostly from clouding of the eye's lens from cataract growths.
"[Indigenous people] who manage to get onto a waiting list will wait almost twice as long as non-Indigenous Australians, sometimes waiting several years or more before receiving surgery," the authors said.
Australia's first eye surgical blitzes, called surgical intensives, occurred during the National Trachoma and Eye Health Program, led by Fred Hollows, in the 1970s. They were followed by several intensives in the 80s and 90s.
More recently, the Fred Hollows Foundation, which received Commonwealth government funding, has been funding more trips to the Northern Territory.
"Despite the best of intentions ... the diversion of resources to arranging surgical blitzes means there are limited resources allocated to developing local services," the authors said.
A spokeswoman from the foundation said Australian governments must persist with efforts to "close the gap" on Indigenous health, including on vision loss.
"Equal access to primary health care remains one of the biggest barriers to Closing the Gap," she said.
The foundation's Indigenous Australia Program runs in remote and under-serviced communities in most Australian states and territories.
