Vision Hospital Group acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land on which all of our day surgeries around Australia are placed. We extend this respect to all First Nations peoples, as patients, employees and community members – and to their Elders past, present and emerging
Our principal focus is delivering world-class surgical care to metropolitan and regional Australian communities, but our commitment to community health doesn’t end there. Several of our doctors and staff contribute their time to charity work, and our OneVision ESG Program includes the following social and environmental initiatives.
Check out our Golden Girls, Eliza and Evie – our sponsored guide dogs-in-training!
Guide dogs can take up to 2 years to complete their training, which starts when they are puppies. Once they graduate, guide dogs can help vision-impaired people get around safely and confidently. While the independence this offers is incredibly valuable, the expenses involved in raising and training a guide dog are significant – each one costs more than $50,000.
The Vision Hospital Group team is proud to sponsor these puppies, and we look forward to seeing them become fully-fledged guide dogs who will transform people’s lives.
‘When not on training walks, Eliza enjoys relaxing with friend and surrogate mother, Black. Evie has been enjoying her beach walks and loves to get about on crisp early mornings.’
As part of our commitment to sustainability, we have joined forces with Global Green And Healthy Hospitals (GGHH) – an international network of hospitals and healthcare facilities committed to reducing their environmental footprint while promoting public and environmental health.
The GGHH network spans more than 80 countries and unites the sustainability efforts of over 1,700 healthcare organisations.
GGHH is a Health Care Without Harm program.
‘Becoming an environmentally sustainable organisation is a long-term project that requires specific expertise. As a member of GGHH, Vision Hospital Group has ready access to valuable tools, resources and ideas that are already designed with healthcare in mind.’
Guided by the GGHH framework, Vision Hospital Group’s initial sustainability goals are:
This ambitious project will be overseen by our Sustainability Working Group, which includes two members of Vision Hospital Group’s Executive Leadership Team – Ms Karen Lopreiato and Ms Cathie Searle.
Detailed assessments of current and proposed initiatives are underway to allow the Sustainability Working Group to set appropriate targets. Here are some of our current sustainability initiatives:
We partner with Lions Recycle for Sight Australia to collect unwanted glasses, which are then refurbished and reused overseas in underprivileged communities.
Many of our patients have donated their glasses – especially those who have had their vision corrected with cataract surgery or a refractive procedure at one of our day surgeries! Once the glasses have been collected, they are taken to one of three recycling centres in Queensland to be cleaned, graded and labelled under strict quality control rules.
Through this program, we have contributed to the hundreds of thousands of glasses donated each year across Australia.
In January 2019, the Australian Government introduced the Modern Slavery Act 2018 (Cth) – an initiative we strongly endorse.
Vision Hospital Group is committed to responsible and ethical business practices. Accordingly, we ensure all aspects of our business, including our supply chains, are free from any kind of slavery. We reject all forms of modern slavery, including unpaid or underpaid servitude, human trafficking and forced labour. We are dedicated to embedding the necessary systems and processes to make sure it does not occur within our own business or across any of our supply chains.