Ben Whitham was working as an orthoptist in the private sector when his name was passed on to Joanna Barton, a nurse manager at the Outback Eye Service, at a conference some years ago. Barton was looking for the right candidate to serve in some of Australia’s most marginalised regions, and Whitham, who had volunteered with remote communities in the mountains of Peru, seemed to fit the bill.
Taking a role in far northwestern New South Wales to deliver eye services to remote Indigenous communities was an incredibly rewarding change for Whitlam, made possible by funding from a partnership between Specsavers and The Fred Hollows Foundation.
