A new course to train nurses to deal specifically with diabetic eye disease will start this month in Fiji.
The training is being organised by the Fred Hollows Foundation NZ and first round of students come from Fiji, Samoa, Tonga and Solomon Islands.
It's hoped the model programme can be expanded to other island countries.
The Foundation' s NZ International Programme Director, Dr Tom Schaefer, says eye nurses are already trained to recognise disease, do vision testing and prescribe glasses, but he says this group will receive specific training:
"This programme is focused just on diabetes, the equipment is quite complex, the computer software that tracks the patients through time is quite complicated and so this is a very specialised programme, 6 month programme just for diabetic eye disease."
The course will be conducted at the Pacific Eye Institute in Suva, which is run by the Foundation.
