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Tony Lord's long service to the Visiting Optometrist Scheme
30th October 2025
The Outreach community witnessed a significant retirement earlier in the year, as optometrist Tony Lord stepped away from the practice in which he has helped generations of central western NSW locals maintain the clarity of their eyesight so they could continue to appreciate the “vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended”, as Banjo Paterson once wrote in conveying something of the beauty of the region.
1 July 1976 marked the foundation of a partnership between optometrists Tony Lord and Phillip Wells and the commencement of an almost half-century of service to the communities of #WestWyalong, #Forbes, and surrounding areas.
Tony has been an Outreach Provider under the Visiting Optometrist Scheme (VOS) since 1977. The Scheme was established in 1975 and is celebrating its 50th year. It has been administered by RDN since 2015.
“I think our partnership has lasted longer than most marriages,” joked Tony, whose 49 years of offering dedicated continuity of care only ‘officially’ came to an end on 30 June, with the handing over of the reins, selling of their business and the beginning of retirement.
“We came into partnership and the beauty is, we were never working in the one office together often so, effectively, even though you were business partners, you weren't living in each other's pockets all the time,” Tony said.
Tony puts the success of their business partnership down to trust, a natural friendship that formed over the years and, most importantly, not only a love of the profession, but a shared goal and commitment to patient care.
“We have a mutual trust of each other,” said Tony. “And I think that's the whole thing, we both have the same concerns and the same aspect with operating business and on patient care,” he said.
Patient care has not only been at the forefront of everything Tony set out to achieve in his long career, but has been combined with an unwavering dedication to, and love of, the rural communities he serves.
This passion for community is not only evident in his role as an optometrist and business owner, but as a long-standing member, and former Mayor, of Bland Shire council.
“I'm still on council but this is this going to be my last term,” Tony said.
“By the time I finish this term, I'll have spent 28 years on council, four of those years (or two terms) as Mayor.
“I’ve always had a passion for the community and like to be involved and do things, but sometimes I saw what was going on and I wanted to criticise so I said to myself, ‘if you're prepared to criticise, you've got to be able to put your hand up’ and so I did,” he said.
Acknowledging that, at times, the two professional roles were a hard juggle that Tony tried to keep separate, benefits included being able to hear from, and advocate for, the rural community where his patients, colleagues and friends resided.
“You could actually do a lot of that networking in conjunction with your work,” Tony said. “But I tried to keep the two roles pretty separate.”
Tony was also a strong advocate for rural areas as part of his involvement with the Optometry Association. He played an instrumental role, especially in pushing for therapeutic endorsement and the building of the new optometry school at UNSW which came soon after his presidency.
Where it all began
With no optometrists in the family, Tony grew up and finished his schooling in West Wyong before enrolling in the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and becoming the first of his siblings to attend University.
“Dad was a farmer but wanted to make sure all the kids had some other trade or profession because we could always come back to the farm.
“I didn't have too much of an idea what I wanted to do at that stage (after school),” Tony reflects.
“I got talking to people and thought about science, health professions and engineering, and finished up doing optometry!”
After Tony graduated, he worked in Sydney for close to a year before getting married and travelling to the UK to work alongside his wife who worked as a nurse at St Thomas’ hospital in the eye department, while Tony became registered and did locum work in East Anglia and London.
“After doing all the travelling and work and all the things you do in Europe in the 70s,” Tony laughed, “we returned in June 76 and I came back to West Wyong and we started the practice in July 76!”
Phillip was originally from Temora near West Wyalong and had graduated from the same University one year after Tony. He spent some time practising in Wagga Wagga before also returning back to his roots to join the business venture with Tony.
“There were very few optometric practices in rural NSW. My business partner did the Forbes practice and we started a network around West Wyalong visiting Condobolin, Temora, Narrandera, Lake Cargelligo and other destinations,” Tony said.
“Then, we looked at assisting in expanding services. We connected to rural areas because we were brought up on farms,” he said.
Expanding services was important to Tony. VOS supports optometrists to deliver Outreach optometric services to locations which would not otherwise have ready access to primary eye care and for Tony, this included places such as Condobolin, Grenfell, Narrandera, Temora and Lake Cargelligo.
VOS is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing and is believed to be the longest running department scheme because of its significant impact and success.
“Initially when we started off in Condobolin, we were doing a weekly visits and then we cut it back to fortnightly visits because we were getting busier in our local practises. So you’d actually work longer days and see more patients in those times and we cut our visits back to fortnightly visits for the last 20 years,” he said.
As part of his commitment to ensuring these Outreach visits continue after his retirement, Tony explained “we effectively donated all our equipment to the local council and the local community and left the records there and the council's putting it into a room that they can rent to any future visiting person.”
It’s important to Tony that this service continues and someone puts their hand up to continue Outreach, otherwise “people are having to travel miles, (80- 120 miles plus) to get services!”
Despite the challenges working rurally can sometimes pose for health professionals who may be considering a move, Tony couldn’t be more confident that the benefits will always outweigh the ‘challenges’.
“You are practising full scope to your capacity out here. It's much more challenging, you see a lot more interesting cases and challenging situations. But when you're doing that, it's a much more satisfying profession and career when you can utilise your skills to their maximum scope.
“Also, you're building a relationship, and the patient knows they're actually coming back to see the same person quite often. Providing you’re servicing your patients and doing the best you can, that's all you can ever do.
“You treat patients who you've done the best you can for, and you have some great successful outcomes and, the thing is, your patients out here treat you as a friend a lot of the time, not just another professional.
“Sure, you don't go down the street and have the choice of several department stores or the three hardware shops or whatever to get what you want. You're a little limited and therefore you're a little bit limited in choice. If you're moving to the rural area, you've got the concept of distance and it's probably moving away from friends and moving away from family that’s the hardest bit.
“You've got to build a whole new relationship. But the thing is, once people have built that relationship, you feel much more part of the community and once you're part of the community, it's very easy to settle in.
Tony admits he was “still enjoying” working and will maintain his registration for another 12 months or so and do some locum work if required.
But one thing’s for sure – there will be no getting bored in retirement.
“If you get bored it's your own fault,” Tony laughed. “I'm a great reader, I still want to keep up with what's happening in the world. I want to do a bit more study of my family history. I want to do a little bit of travelling and I'd like to see an Ashes Test at Lords one day, see the kids and grandkids more, spend a bit of time down the coast, wind down and whatever else …just “doing little bits and pieces”.
RDN wishes Tony a very happy retirement!
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