When Dr Duke Mataka became Tonga’s Ophthalmologist in 2018, he filled a post that has been vacant for a decade following the departure of Dr Afu Taumoepeau.

Tonga’s needs of an Ophthalmologist during the last decade were provided by volunteer eye doctors from New Zealand and Australia, who visited Tonga annually.

Dr Mataka finished Medical School overseas then in 2012 returned to work with the Ministry of Heath.

He was working in Vava’u in 2013, looking after the Diabetic and the Eye Clinics, when an Eye Team from New Zealand came and carried out about 125 eye operations in one week.

“Oh, there is a need for such a service,” Duke recalled.

“That was when the doors open up.

“I did not know that there was such a need. So I decided to get into eyes.”

He gained a Masters’ degree in Ophthalmology in 2018, after studying for four years at the Pacific Island Institute, Fiji. The institute was established by a New Zealand Foundation, to cater for the needs of Pacific Islanders in Forum Island Countries.

Duke said that he and a counterpart from Vanuatu were the last to qualify from the Institute.

When he took charge of the Ophthalmology Division of the Ministry of Health, the waiting list for cataract treatments alone was about 400.

He said that they are now into their second year of operation, but during last year, they carried out 500 operations.

Duke explained that the big challenge that they are facing is convincing people that they can treat their eye problems.

He said that, unfortunately, there is a conviction by many that going blind is a part of the process of getting old, and that one has to accept it.

There were also a few who preferred to travel overseas for eye surgery, but later returned because they could not afford to have a cataract operation overseas.

They had cateract operations in Tonga, and now have seen the light.