The Lions Eye Institute aims to make quality eye healthcare accessible for everyone, and is working to grow its community footprint through excellent outreach and innovative education approaches.
We believe in making our skills and knowledge accessible, and actively promote service enhancement across all of our Western Australian communities, and our neighbours near to Australia.
An early example of this was the setup of the Indonesian ophthalmic training programmes with inter-university and ophthalmic society research and training collaborations across developing Asian nations.
The Lions Eye Institute started working in Indonesia in the 1970s, when Professor Ian Constable AO travelled throughout South East Asia and did the first vitrectomy surgeries in cities including Jakarta. Lions Eye Institute ophthalmologists have regularly held clinics and trained local doctors in Indonesia ever since.
The Institute has Memorandums of Understanding with Universitas Indonesia in Jakarta and Universitas Udayana in Bali, with the aim of strengthening ties and fostering innovations and training opportunities. The development of the Virna Glaucoma Drainage Device, co-invented by Indonesian ophthalmologist Dr Virna Oktariana and Professor Bill Morgan, has been a game-changer in Indonesia, where glaucoma affects six million people.
Our community work is both clinical and research-oriented. It spans Western Australian rural and remote communities through Lions Outback Vision, a partnership with The University of Western Australia to develop the Doctor of Optometry programme, exchanges opportunities for health professionals in Asian countries, and education and advocacy programmes.
We are working on developing a unique new public-private eye clinic in Midland, which will address a critical shortage of eye health services in Perth’s eastern corridor and Wheatbelt. This clinic will be co-managed by ophthalmology and optometry.
Our work in the community also includes Lions Eye Bank, which facilities eye tissue donation, Lions Optics, an optics shop on the QEII Medical centre precinct, our Consumer and Community Advisory Panel and our work with VisAbility to provide Community Vision Services.