Measles left me blind, this is why vaccinations matter
Olivia En contracted measles as a baby living as a refugee in Vietnam, where vaccines were not an option for her family.
Olivia En was just six when she had her eyelids sewn shut, after measles left her blind.
En contracted measles when she was 18 months old and living in Vietnam.
Her family had fled Cambodia and the Pol Pot regime in 1975 and lived under the radar in Vietnam to avoid entering the refugee camps.
It's a privilege to have free and widely available measles vaccines, Olivia En says.
Olivia En
That meant vaccines were not available to her family and the consequences for her were life altering, the lawyer and mother-of-four told RNZ’s Nine to Noon.
“When I was six years old, I had to go through eye surgery.
“I had my eyes sewn closed for a couple of years because the scarring was so bad on my corneas that my eyelids couldn't close properly.”
Her family came to New Zealand as refugees in 1986, when she was aged three. At the Māngere Refugee Centre where they were offered the MMR vaccine, she says.
She remembers hearing her mother crying once the family were settled in New Zealand.
“I was probably eight or nine and she was with a friend and she was crying. It's awful when you hear your parents cry like that as a child.
“And she was going on about why couldn't she get medication for me? Why couldn't she do this, that and the other?”
Measles vaccinations here are a “victim of their own success,” she says.
“I think it's the privilege that we have of living in a country where we get access to healthcare, we get access to free vaccinations.
“And unfortunately, I think that privilege means that we're throwing it all away by allowing vaccination levels to drop this low.”
She encourages people to get vaccinated, even if it may seem scary or inconvenient.
“Because I tell you what, it's a heck of a lot more inconvenient being blind.”
