Dr Szetu has been delivering eye care in the Pacific since 1988 and has worked with the foundation, helping to restore sight, for 21 years.
With the support of the foundation, he established the Pacific Eye Institute in 2006 and the Pacific Eye Care Society to represent eye care professionals working in the Pacific region.
Dr Szetu spoke about his journey of caring for eyes in the Pacific and the causes of blindness such as cataracts, diabetes and lack of equitable access to eye care.
He is considered to be the southern hemisphere’s leading authority on restorative sight.
He also spoke about training eye-care professionals to be able to set up programmes within their countries so they could deliver services in their respective countries, rather than being totally dependent on international teams coming in to do the work.
He said they trained 327 eye-care specialists in Fiji and Papua New Guinea. Two decades ago, there were "hardly any — just a couple here and there".
"There was total dependency of international teams flying in and out."
After the lecture, he said it gave him a sense of accomplishment to see the organisation "jump leaps and bounds" to where it is today.
"To see that all the countries are able to do it on their own, to be able to provide the services on their own is great."
The foundation was now taking a step back to stop and think about what to do next, he said.
"There is still a lot of work to do. Some countries have enough ophthalmologists, others are still lagging behind.
"So we are re-strategising to see how the foundation would better serve the people.
"We’ve come a long way and we have achieved what we have, which is really good, but we still have man-power needs in the various countries — especially in Papua New Guinea."
He said the medical schools there were not producing enough doctors, let alone doctors who specialised in ophthalmology.
The lecture was held to celebrate the signing of a memorandum of understanding between The Fred Hollows Foundation New Zealand and the division of health sciences at Otago, which continues their collaboration on improving eye care for the people of the Pacific.
Wife of the late Fred Hollows and The Fred Hollows Foundation Australia and New Zealand patron Gabi Hollows also attended the lecture.
She has been a driving force behind the foundation since the duo established it around their dinner table.
She has been recognised for her work through an Advance Australia Award for community service and a Paul Harris Fellowship from Rotary International.
She has also been named one of Australia’s 100 Living National Treasures.
