Thanks to Professor Angus Turner, specialist eye care is available to people in rural and remote WA.
Story Nathan Dyer Photos Lee Griffith
The distances are extreme. The logistics relentless. But for Professor Angus Turner, the rewards of working in the remote Kimberley of WA come in many guises. “When you’re flying home from a remote, wet season Kimberley visit, you’re exhausted, but there’s also this sense of fulfilment,” he says. “The thunderstorms are mind-blowing. The lightning flashes wake you up and you know exactly why you’re here.”
As founder of Lions Outback Vision, the Broome-based ophthalmologist regularly traverses WA’s far north by air, coordinating an extraordinary team delivering specialist eye care to people who would otherwise go without.
Born in rural South Africa, Angus began his journey to outback eye surgeon long ago, following in the footsteps of his maternal grandfather, Donald Girdwood, a GP servicing the mud hut communities of South Africa’s vast Eastern Cape region. “He was pretty much the only doctor for an enormous area,” Angus says. “He delivered multiple generations of children and had a clinic at the back of his house, with patients lining up in the yard. He did his own pathology and biochemistry on a microscope in the back room.”
Although just nine years old when his father, also a rural doctor, decided to move the family to Australia, Angus says those early memories endured. “There was something powerful about living inside the community you served,” he says. “Not just doing a job and leaving, but being woven into the fabric of people’s lives. That really appealed to me.”
This story excerpt is from issue #167
Outback Magazine: June/July 2026
