A decade of community eyecare

OPSM Waurn Ponds

This year marks my first decade of caring for the eyes of our community.

In 2008, OPSM Waurn Ponds employed three people and checked 40 pairs of eyes in a busy week. Today, we are a team of 16 locals who take care of four times that many.

During our growth, we’ve been awarded by the Franchising Council of Australia, Luxottica Franchising, and nominated in the HESTA Primary Health Care Awards.

We focus obsessively on the quality of a customer’s experience.

We begin and complete their journey solely around their individual needs and their eye health.

An eye check is not an opportunity to sell glasses – it is an opportunity to preserve healthy eyes and enable good vision for life.

I’ve provided eyecare in remote locations, in Australia and overseas.

It is humbling to visit fishers who cannot see to mend their nets and provide for their families, villagers who can no longer read their Bible, and grandparents who have not seen the faces of their grandchildren.

A pair of glasses allows these people to regain engagement in their lives, and the lives of those around them.

In our own healthy community, the stakes are often less high, but the goal remains the same.

I teach at Deakin University.

Optometry is a scientific endeavour, but I remind the students that they are helping a person, an individual with unique expectations. Our team loves eyes, but ultimately we love to meet people, begin to understand them whilst helping their eyesight, and be proud of the small help we make to their daily life.