North Queensland Toyota Cowboys community partner Westfund Health Insurance are continuing to help students perform at their best, visiting Townsville schools this week as part of the not-for-profit health fund's Vision Screening program.
Westfund's program provides school vision screenings as a community service – with no cost to parents or schools – to encourage awareness of eye problems and the importance of regular examinations, especially for school-aged children.
Optometrist Ronald Nguyen and the Westfund team dropped in at Garbutt State School, Weir State School and Marian Catholic School, testing the eyes of hundreds of prep students.
"The aim is to detect any unknown condition with school aged children ... because there is a 20-30% correlation between that and learning defects," Mr Nguyen said.
Special visitor Cowboy Ray Thompson also spent some time with Marian Catholic School students, and even had his own eyesight put to the test, passing with flying colours!
As part of the program, parents are provided with a vision screening report for their child that includes a basic assessment of visual acuity, refractive error, binocular vision and colour vision, with the visiting optometrist also recommending further tests if needed.
Westfund's Vision Screening program is part of a larger preventative health initiative the fund is undertaking to improve the general health of local communities in North Queensland.
For more information on Westfund, visit westfund.com.au.
