Many serious eye conditions do not alert you by blurring your vision, making your eyes sore or red, or giving you eye pain or a headache. So you should have your eyes checked every couple of years. Just in case. If you are at school, or studying or use a computer a lot or drive or are over 40 you should have your eyes checked regularly. OK, that’s almost all of us!

So who are you going to choose to check your eyes? I would suggest you choose an individual optometrist, rather than just going to an optical shop you’ve heard of, or received marketing material from. Also, it may not be a good idea to have your eyes checked on impulse based on liking a spectacle frame you’ve seen on display. This should not be a retail experience or a shopping decision – this is the health of your eyes we’re talking about. That should come first.

Since there are no barriers to ownership of health care businesses in Queensland, many optometrists are employees of large corporations (often owned by spectacle frame manufacturers) and recently there has been an upsurge in franchising. Some of the franchisees have called themselves “owners” and claim to be “independent”, but nothing could be further from the truth. These employees and franchisees are controlled by large corporations in the optical industry. They have sales targets: hardly a recipe for the provision of ethical, professional eye examinations.

And what if you need spectacles? The choice appears to be cheap glasses, possibly with a designer name, or designer glasses. Design is one thing, but consider the manufacturing. If you are paying for a designer and all their TV appearances, how much of your money do you think goes into the quality of materials to make the frames? And if you buy expensive fashion designer glasses, are they really designed by that designer of little black dresses or handbags? Licensing of designer names is commonplace in the optical industry – a corporation pays for the rights to use a designer name, then designs the frames themselves (no matter what the brand name they use) and has them manufactured cheaply and in huge quantities. So, not really what you are lead to believe you are buying… There are even some that apply the same principles to spectacle lenses – cheaply made lenses with a licensed brand name. Often you really would be just paying for the name!

At North Lakes Optometry we use our independence and experience to offer you high quality spectacle frames that represent very good value for money. You may not have heard of brands such as Rodenstock, Koali, Lightec and ProDesign Denmark – they don’t make handbags or little black dresses. We have good quality budget frames too. Not only that but we offer you premium quality spectacle lenses made by the best manufacturers.

Our minimum staff training level is Certificate IV Optical Dispensing. We do not have receptionists or in-house trained assistants. This reflects our level of commitment to our work and, of course, to you. Our optometrist has 35 years experience in the industry, degrees from 3 different universities, several professional qualifications and has taught in 3 different university optometry schools as well as working in hospital eye departments.

So who should you trust to look after your eyes and provide your eyewear??