Sight-saving-science

[Music plays and text appears: Sight saving science for the Torres Strait]

[Image changes to David Hansen – CEO, CSIRO Australian e-health Research Centre]

David Hansen: We’re here on Thursday Island to have a look at the Tele Ophthalmology Project that we’ve been running here in Torres Strait.

[Image changes to show a man in a boat on the ocean]

[Image changes to show a man fishing off a pier]

[Image changes to show a Post Office with telephone boxes on the kerb outside]

[Image changes to show people walking down a street]

There’s over a million people in Australia with Diabetes, forecast to double over the next 20 years.

[Image changes to show a boat speeding along on the water]

[Image changes to show people sitting at a table]

[Image changes to show a bird standing in the water]

[Image changes to show people walking a dog along the shoreline]

[Image changes to show boats on the water]

[Image changes to show Torres Strait Council building]

[Image changes to show cars driving down a road]

This disease often causes irreversible blindness and affects Aboriginal people at four times the rate as your non-Indigenous population.

[Image changes to show a boat on the water]

[Image changes to show a small township and a bay in the background]

[Image changes to show the Thursday Island Hospital]

[Image changes to show Doctor Bill Glasson – Brisbane based Ophthalmologist, IRIS]

Dr. Bill Glasson: The end result of Diabetes, in terms of your eyes, is it can send you blind.

[Image changes to show Paul Christian having his eyes tested by Ghislaine Wharton]

[Image changes back to David Hansen]

David Hansen: The remote eye system we’ve developed in CSIRO allows the local nurses to take images of the retina of patients, which we use high speed broadband to send to the ophthalmologist in the city.

[Image changes to show Ghislaine Wharton talking to Paul Christian]

Dr. Bill Glasson: Part of what we’re trying to do here in terms of screening patients in remote communities, is to identify this disease early so we can institute treatment.

[Image changes to show Ghislaine Wharton – Clinical Nurse Consultant Pphthalmology, Torres & Cape Hospital & Health Service]

Ghislaine Wharton: We can see the affects of the high blood pressure, the sugar, and the cholesterol, on the back of their eye, and also smoking as well.

[Image changes to show Ghislaine Wharton working at a computer]

The screening process takes about ten minutes, so basically we put in patient details, a little bit of clinical data, attach the photos, send it off.

[Image changes to show a photo of an eye]

[Image changes to show a satellite dish on a roof with the ocean in the background]

[Image changes to a view of street in the city of Brisbane]

The ophthalmologist and I can have a real time conversation with the patient present.

[Image changes to show Dr. Bill Glasson looking at images on a computer]

Dr. Bill Glasson: Just ringing up about Mrs H.S., the 52 year old diabetic. I’ve got images up here in front of me.

[Image changes back to Dr. Bill Glasson]

As I assess these images they can look at those same images and they can learn a lot about you know what to look for in retinopathy, so it’s a great educational tool.

[Image changes to show Dr. Bill Glasson looking at images on a computer]

[Image changes to show Paul Christian – Advanced Indigenous health worker, Torres and Cape Hospital and Health Service]

[Image changes to show Ghislaine Wharton talking to Paul Christian]

[Image changes back to Paul Christian]

Paul Christian: It’s advanced diagnosis, because like I’ll take myself for example, I didn’t know I had problems with my eyes until she actually looked at the photos after she’d taken of me, and it showed that... some problems with my vessels, blood vessels in the eye.

[Image changes to show people on a boat on the water]

[Image changes back to Ghislaine Wharton]

Ghislaine Wharton: We need to work around people’s movements; they’re a very mobile population, the Torres Strait.

[Image changes to show people disembarking from a boat and walking on a pier]

As a patient, leaving your family and your community to access any sort of services is a major disruption to your life, and also an incredible cost for Queensland Health.

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So any service we can take to the community is fabulous.

[Image changes to show Ghislaine Wharton and David Hansen walking up the stairs at Thursday Island Hospital]

Previously, before we had the camera, everybody would have to wait until our eye doctor was here on Thursday Island, so a lot of people were missed.

[Image changes to show Ghislaine Wharton talking to Paul Christian]

[Image changes to Paul Christina having his eyes tested]

The three cameras we have for the project, one’s on Badu Island, one’s on Thursday Island here, and the other’s at Bamaga Hospital.

[Image changes to show Northern Peninsula Area Hospital (Bamaga)]

[Image changes to back to Dr. Bill Glasson]

Bill Glasson: If I, as an ophthalmologist, go and visit remote communities, I might only get there once a year.

[Image changes to show various pictures of boats on the water]

I had a tremendous amount of frustration, because I knew that half the... more than half the patients weren’t going to see me and these patients had lost significant vision already.

[Image changes to show a man on a boat, and the camera pans over the pier]

[Image changes to back to Dr. Bill Glasson]

And I know despite my treatment it was sort of too late, in other words we were trying to preserve the little bit of vision they had left.

[Image changes to show Paul Christian walking down a hallway with the camera]

Paul Christian: The word’s got out about this camera, and a lot more people are feeling confident, so they’re coming up to the health centres and asking, “Oh, when you going to bring your camera down next?”

[Image changes to back to Paul Christian]

Well your eyes are the windows to your soul, or something like that the saying goes, and I think that pretty much sums it all up about this machine.

[Image changes to show logos of IRIS Indigenous and Remote Eye Health Service; CSIRO; ASO Australian Society of Ophthalmologists; Queensland Government; and text appears: This initiative is funded by the Australian Government]

[Music plays and CSIRO logo appears with text: Big ideas start here www.csiro.au]