Lions Outback Vision

19/06/2026

Congratulations to our inspirational leader on this award recognising his continued commitment and dedication to finding solutions to treat eye disease. Nice to see all that hard work behind the scenes being recognised.

MDFA launches a new award for research relevant to people with macular disease in regional or rural areas of Australia.

MDFA has awarded Professor Angus Turner the inaugural Elisabeth Macdonald Memorial Award to develop and test an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that analyses photographs of the back of the eye (the retina) to detect age-related macular degeneration (AMD), glaucoma and diabetes-related eye conditions.

The Elisabeth Macdonald Memorial award has been made possible by a generous gift from a long standing MDFA supporter and donor. This legacy gift will ongoingly support research relevant to people living with a macular or retinal disease living in regional or rural areas of Australia.

Professor Turner’s project aims to improve access to eye health screening for people across regional and rural areas of Western Australia who have limited access to specialist eye care, which can lead to delays in diagnosis and preventable vision loss.
The goal is to support earlier detection, improve referral pathways and enhance access to timely eye care in underserved rural communities.

By bringing advanced technology into local primary care clinics, this groundbreaking project has the potential to revolutionise diagnosis and care for people with a macular or retinal disease in regional and rural areas, not only in Australia, but worldwide.

Learn more about the research: https://www.mdfoundation.com.au/news/elisabeth-macdonald-memorial-award/

27/05/2026

Yesterday we said farewell to our Vision Van Fellow, Dr Murilo Roggia. Murilo has been working on the van since last year and has been around the state several times looking after our patients. He had his final clinics in Exmouth with Dr Aditi, Dr Gifar and Charlie, our van driver bidding him farewell. All the best Murilo and thanks for all your hard work.

25/05/2026

Thank you to the Pilbara Ports Small Grants Program and Rio Tinto Community Giving Program for supporting LOV with funds that enabled the purchase of an Autorefractor for use in our Roebourne visiting optometry clinic. The large bottle neck at many remote sites is the inability to fund, or have funded, a fully kitted out optometric service delivery room. To provide efficient and streamlined clinical delivery, we rely on handheld equipment to allow for quicker assessment. In Roebourne we now run fortnightly optometry clinics, the most we have ever run and over the next 3 years we hope to be able to assess over 300 patients.
Thank you, and for your support.

20/05/2026

Janet Richardson works as an Aboriginal Liaison Officer at Lions Outback Vision in Broome and recently gave the Jilpia Nappaljari Jones Memorial Oration, celebrating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women in eye care at the 10th National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Eye Health Conference, recently held in Melbourne.
In 1978, when BRAMS was established, Janet worked as a Nurse/Receptionist, where she had the chance to meet Professor Fred Hollows and his team. She had the privilege of travelling with him to show him the Peninsula Region of the Kimberley and outstations at Roebuck Plains. It was the Professor who inspired her to take up Eye Health.
We love listening to Aunty Janet’s stories and hearing of her rich history and experiences as well as learning from her wisdom and watching her kindness to our patients. We thought we would Janet's story with you.
Thank you to and Aunty Janet for the beautiful video and allowing us to share it.

https://fneha.com.au/seeing-our-way-life

18/05/2026

During the Pilbara Challenge in 2023 and 2024, we road tested several AI tools that could identify diabetic retinopathy in patient images as soon as they were taken.
The advanced AI diagnostic tool, known as ARDA, was developed by Google Health and was the most accurate, with the technology now handed over to our Ninox Vision team, vested in providing AI supported cameras to GPs and Primary Health providers across Australia.
Hear what Angus Turner has to say about the system and its validation in these informative one, five or 10 minute videos.

Dr Angus Turner shows the solutions Google AI is enabling in his vital work to improve screening for eye disease.

16/04/2026

It's a little bit late to wish everyone a happy New Year🙃but we are back with our new team and loving every minute of it. Don't believe us - look at those smiles as Maheshi, Gifar and Aditi got off the plane for this week's Kalgoorlie outreach trip (and that was after an early morning start and delayed departure). LOV your work ladies.