Asgarpour Optometry goes to Bella Bella
- Nov 4, 2025
- 4 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
Access to quality eye care and eyewear is essential for healthy vision, and regular eye exams play a critical role in lifelong eye health.
In urban areas across Canada, visiting an optometrist for an eye exam is relatively easy. In remote communities without a local eye doctor, however, access to essential vision care is often limited.
When Asgarpour Optometry learned that many children in Bella Bella, British Columbia had not received a recent eye exam, our team brought professional eye care directly to the community. Over the course of one impactful week, we provided comprehensive eye exams to approximately 100 children and helped ensure they received the vision care they needed.
Our visit to Bella Bella highlights the importance of accessible eye care for children in remote communities and the lasting impact it can have on their health and learning.
Why Bella Bella?
Bella Bella is a close knit coastal community located on Heiltsuk Territory along the west coast of British Columbia. With a population of about 1,600 people, many of them children, the community has long faced challenges accessing routine eye care.
A pediatrician who works closely with families in Bella Bella recognized that many children were not receiving regular vision exams. For most families, visiting an optometrist meant traveling hundreds of kilometers outside the community, often requiring flights or ferry trips to larger cities.
Because of these barriers, many children had never had an eye exam, even though regular vision checks are an important part of childhood health and development. Without easy access to care, everyday vision needs were often delayed or missed entirely.
This experience highlighted how meaningful it can be to bring eye care directly to the community, helping children receive the care they deserve without leaving home.
Where the Journey Began
The need for vision care in Bella Bella became especially clear when a young patient arrived at a pediatric appointment wearing broken glasses with no way to replace them. Without access to an optometrist in the community, even basic vision needs had become difficult to address.
The child’s mother explained that the glasses were damaged and no longer usable, and that a new prescription was needed. Traveling outside the community was not an option at the time due to limited flight availability, leaving the family with no immediate solution.
Recognizing the urgency of the situation, the pediatrician reached out to Justin Asgarpour to ask for support in bringing vision care to the community. The message was simple but powerful. Children needed access to eye exams and properly fitted glasses close to home.
Our clinic
On February 21, 2023, Justin and Andrew Asgarpour, together with their partners from Clearly, travelled from Vancouver to Bella Bella with the goal of bringing eye care directly to local children.
Each morning began early, with the team traveling by boat to set up a temporary eye care clinic at the local school. From 8:00 am to 3:00 pm, children arrived steadily throughout the day to receive vision care in a familiar and welcoming environment.
The clinic provided a full range of services, including interactive vision screenings, autorefractive imaging, comprehensive eye exams. For children who required vision correction, the team gave the children a glasses prescription and helped each child select glasses that fit comfortably and felt exciting to wear.
By the end of the week, approximately 100 children between the ages of 5 and 17 had received eye exams and vision support. It was a meaningful experience for our team and a reminder of the powerful impact that accessible eye care can have when it is delivered directly within the community.
The need for eyecare for children everywhere
Across Canada, approximately one in four children requires vision correction. In Bella Bella, however, the need was significantly higher. Nearly 65 percent of children who attended the clinic required glasses to correct refractive errors.
During the exams, our optometrists observed a higher prevalence of refractive errors, astigmatism, and cases of amblyopia that can threaten long term vision if left untreated. These findings reflect broader patterns that have been reported within Indigenous populations, underscoring the importance of early detection and timely access to eye care.
Providing vision testing and corrective eyewear in the community helped address these unmet needs and offered children an opportunity for clearer vision, improved learning, and better overall health.
Beyond protecting long term eye health, regular eye exams play an essential role in a child’s overall wellbeing and development. Clear vision supports learning, confidence, and a child’s ability to fully engage with the world around them.
According to the Canadian Association of Optometrists, up to 80 percent of learning is visual, and untreated vision problems can slow a child’s development and lead to frustration in the classroom. When children struggle to see clearly, it can affect not only academic learning but also their confidence and participation.
Ensuring children have access to proper vision care helps support their learning, social development, and overall quality of life.
The Power of Eyecare
From beginning to end, our time in Bella Bella was an experience we will always remember. The moments shared, the connections formed, and the people we met continue to influence how we think about eye care and how we serve communities across Canada.
“I loved being able to connect with the children each day, seeing their excitement as they chose their glasses, and experiencing the warmth and beauty of the community and its culture,” said Dr. Justin Asgarpour
