Father Optimistic About Boy’s Sight

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30632, 24 December 1964, Page 1

Father Optimistic About Boy’s Sight

“With any luck at all, he’ll keep the sight he’s got now,” said Reginald Dawson’s father when the nine-year-old Southland boy returned to New Zealand from Melbourne last night. Reginald, who is blind in the left eye, was in danger of losing the sight of the other eye until a delicate operation was performed at the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital on December 11.

Reginald comes from Colac Bay, Southland, where his father, Mr Stewart Dawson, is a timber worker. They will fly to Dunedin this morning, and plan to drive home in the afternoon. ”r Dawson said at Christchurch Airport that he was reluctant to talk about his son’s operation because he felt sorry for the many others who could not get the same sight-saving treatment. “At the hospital, I Saw a woman burst into tears because she couldn’t have it done,” said Mr Dawson.

The rare operation was done by Professor G. W. Crock, director of the Ophthalmic Research Institute of Australia. A tendon from one of Reginald’s legs was grafted into the wall of the eye to strengthen it and to bring the retina back into its correct position. Reginald was suffering from retinal de-

tachment disease in the right eye.

He was very cheerful when he reached Christchurch, and said he felt “pretty good.” Asked whether he had anything to say about the money that was contributed in Dunedin to send them to Melbourne, Mr Dawson said he was most grateful for everything everyone had done for him, starting with the people in his own district of Colac Bay, 30 miles from Invercargill. “Now I’ll have to start putting it back in," he said. The £2OO required for the trip and accommodation was guaranteed by Sir Leonard Wright, chairman of the Blind Foundation in Dunedin. Sir Leonard Wright said at the time that he had no doubt that the foundation would provide the money, but if it could not, “it is already paid, and that is all there is to it.”