He fled to Australia at the age of five, part of a family keen to flee an Iraq savaged by war. Now this award-winning optometrist is giving back to the community that gave him a second chance.
Not many Victorians can talk about COVID in a positive light.
But as the conversation turns to the pandemic that held much of the world in a vice-like grip, optometrist Dr Mohammed Al Ebrahimi leans back and flashes a huge smile.
That’s because while Victoria was busy racking up days in lockdown, Dr Al Ebrahimi was just as busy making the most of his own enforced isolation.
“COVID turned out to be a positive experience for me,” he says. “It was my fourth year at Melbourne University, but there was no requirement for me to go to uni or do a placement.”
While Dr Al Ebrahimi was busy finishing his optometry degree, the idea of a health empire came to fruition.
This involved establishing an aged-care business supported by a range of critical allied health services, of which optometry was just one.
“I was busy because COVID hit aged care hard, and we were full gear, helping people,” he says.
The irony is that the tables had turned for Dr Al Ebrahimi and his family.
They were the ones who had endured long periods of hardship, not only in their perilous journey 24 years ago, but also the struggles of adapting to a strange new culture in their adopted home.
They might have made it to the Lucky Country but they were the ones who needed help and for them, the only way out was hard work and education.
While other primary school children were doing homework, their parents reading to them, Dr Al Ebrahimi was struggling with a new language, foreign education system and a tiger mum.
“My mum’s way of education is, ‘there’s a massive textbook you’ve got to study’.”
And study he did. Not just the textbooks but also the Aussie way of life.
“They gave me an education, free health care, support; I think the great thing about Australians is that they are very giving people.
“So I tried to understand the Australian culture and fit into Australian society.”
“Mate” is spread liberally through the conversation; he even played a bit of footy.
But AFL wasn’t his future. Driven by a family that prioritised education and hard work, and keen to give something back to his new home, he studied optometry at the University of Melbourne.
“I am very passionate about healthcare, and I fell in love with optometry because it’s a critical part of life,” he says. “Almost everybody’s got some form of vision problem, everyone’s going to need an eye test, no matter where they are in their life journey.”
As passionate as he is about optometry, he is equally passionate about business.
His vision stretched beyond optometry to a wider, more holistic view of health, the large number of people struggling for access, and the opportunities that represented.
“I’ve always been business-minded,” says Dr Al Ebrahimi. “I started when I was 17, 18 years old, providing vocational education to the migrant community.
“But I realised they were applying for jobs and were not getting an opportunity because of the language barrier.”
In one hand he had plenty of qualified people struggling to find work; on the other, the aged care industry was struggling to find workers and support.
Those pockets of unmet need would become the bricks with which his growing healthcare empire would be built.
So while Dr Al Ebrahimi studied for his optometry degree, he was also working hard to bring those two together, establish an aged care business and lay that next brick.
What he now jokingly refers to as “side hustles” became serious business ventures encompassing allied health services and support for the elderly, the disabled and many others in the migrant community.
“In 2021 I wanted to build the Costco of healthcare,” he says.
COVID provided another opportunity.
Failing businesses left faltering leases and empty buildings, so “I came in and signed a 15-year lease” and People First Healthcare was born.
The business was built on a vision of delivering exceptional quality care within the age care and disability sectors while helping to alleviate the suffering and isolation that many people, especially older migrants and refugees, found themselves.
Three years later, Dr Al Ebrahimi is CEO of the People First Healthcare group, a business employing over 400 staff in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland.
Most of these staff were the ones who had been held back by language and cultural barriers.
But thanks to the vocational training business that Dr Al Ebrahimi had started in his teens, they have found meaningful employment and a whole new pathway in life.
Today, the People First Healthcare group offers a range of services that are much greater than the original vision of optometry and aged care, including nursing care, podiatry, physio, speech and occupational therapy, disability care, gardening, cleaning and home maintenance, in-home meals and even radiology.
It’s a family business and the vision will never stop.
The mother that drove him to study and work hard is the firm’s “people-person”; his brother, a qualified lawyer, is the company’s chief operating officer.
That family extends beyond the business.
They have also established the Beloved Gathering Group, aimed at getting thousands of vulnerable people out of their houses and into their communities.
Dr Al Ebrahimi understands the isolation and loneliness suffered by many Australians, including migrants and refugees.
“So I set up this not-for-profit organisation and the sole purpose is to break people from isolation, who are vulnerable, who might go to the pokies for example, who need to be part of something.
“We bring these older people in, take them out on buses to the zoo or the park.”
This and the healthcare business are an important part of Dr Al Ebrahimi’s work to give back.
“I came to Australia as a refugee from Iraq,” he says. “Australia has given me an opportunity to get an education, make a living and obviously support the community.
“So I’ve always had the motivation to give back to the community through my business ventures.”
He loves Australia, and the feeling is mutual.
Victoria nominated him as its 2025 Young Australian of the Year, for which he was named as a finalist, and recently he was one of 20 “outstanding health professionals” in the Stronger Medicare Awards.
At 29 he has accomplished so much.
All of this means he is now ‘semi-retired’ as an optometrist – “I leave my fantastic optometrist to do what they love, seeing patients in the room”.
But the profession is never far from his mind.
On the “vision board” behind him is a large Specsavers logo.
He admires the company’s business model and its national coverage.
“I think they do a fantastic job, I want to be in a place where I can run my business all around Australia.
“My vision is to provide different communities with care and love and compassion, provide health care. And I guess the vision is to be an Australian brand that’s national, bringing the service to their home or they can come to the clinic.”
He’s young, smart, ambitious.
He doesn’t sleep much.
You wouldn’t bet against him.
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