Seymour doctor acknowledged for work in eye care

"It was a lovely surprise to be nominated," Dr Keeffe said.

"Seeing the people that are there (other winners on the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness website) - many who I have worked with and become friends with - to just be part of that group of people, for me, makes me go wow. 

"We haven’t eliminated avoidable blindness and vison loss but we have reduced the prevalence in almost all countries.

"We've still got lots of challenges but at least there’s support and the knowledge.

"And for me, it (my contribution) was being able to add to the knowledge from my own research."

Despite holding many roles throughout the last 30 years, eye care wasn't Dr Keeffe's first career choice.

"We lived in NSW initially and came down here in the early-70s," she said.

"I'd been a primary school teacher in Sydney for nearly six years.

"We came down here and it was quite a change for me.

"My first job was with the Department of Education in what was called the Special Services Division for children not only with vision impairment but physical and intellectual disabilities.

"I worked for one year in head office at the special services division then we started the Visiting Teacher Service for Visually Impaired Children.

"For them to have a special education (before the visiting teacher service), it was all in the special school for the blind or special school for the partially sighted - two for the whole state of Victoria.

"The visiting teaching service was set up in my second year in Victoria, so I became involved with that.

"But after a few years, I was in charge of the visiting teaching service for the whole state.

"One of my jobs, which led to a big change, was we had a fortnightly clinic for new children being referred for services to learn about, could we do something and improve their vision? did they have low vision? or were they blind? and look at appropriate services for them.

"I worked in that fortnightly clinic with a fantastic paediatric ophthalmologist, who after quite a few years said "come and do a PhD" because he was part of the University of Melbourne's Department of Ophthalmology.

"He said ‘we don't know enough about these children, we need to do some research’ and so that was my PhD specialising in low vision in children.

"At the end of the '90s, we still had this massive situation which regarding people with vision impairment that needed to be handled.

“The head of the department when I completed my PhD, Professor Hugh Taylor had a lot of links worldwide, as well here in Australia, and I was very lucky to be added to many of those links."

After completing her PhD, Dr Keeffe began work at the Centre for Eye Research Australia, eventually rising to head the public health unit and the director of the WHO's Collaborating Centre for Prevention of Blindness as well as being appointed a Professor of Ophthalmology.

At CERA, she developed and published the Low Vision Kit, a tool to provide simple but accurate assessment of visual acuity and functional vision, easily employed by community health workers and teachers.

The kit, published by the WHO, has allowed for widespread understanding of the assessment of functional vision, training for those with low vision on effective use of their vision, and easier access to simple visual acuity tests.

In 2003, she began serving as technical advisor to Lions Club's International Foundation’s (LCIF) SightFirst Program.

In that capacity, she has helped developed comprehensive, sustainable eye care projects throughout the Western Pacific region promoting high-quality, cost-effective strategies and guiding programs to successful implementation.

She was also instrumental in designing LCIF's diabetes grant program in order to fight diabetes.

Currently a faculty member at the LV Prasad Eye Institute in Hyderabad, India, where she works for the advancement of rural eye care and vision rehabilitation, Dr Keeffe has never ceased to expand her reach in the eye care world.