Eye health reform needs the collective voice of members

Optometry Australia is seeking the support of members to email their local Federal Member of Parliament asking them to put optometry on the political agenda as an urgent policy matter.

The campaign highlights that Australia’s health system is failing community eye health needs because not all Australians have access to the timely and affordable eye-health care that they need.

CEO Lyn Brodie said, ‘We need our politicians to ignite important conversations about the unacceptably high levels of vision loss and blindness being experienced by Australians due to rising levels of eye disease amongst our ageing population.

‘By using our online advocacy tool to write to your Federal MP, members can help by calling on their elected representative to stimulate these conversations and from these, spark the debates necessary to generate policy change’.

Policy & Advocacy Manager Sarah Davies, who is managing the campaign, said that it is easy to get involved.

‘As a member, you can access our online advocacy tool, follow the prompts and within a few mouse clicks, your pre-written email message will be on its way to your local Federal MP’, she said.

The campaign has been developed so that MPs across Australia will receive the same message –optometrists seek their support of the recommendations outlined in Optometry Australia’s recently launched Working Together for Better Eye Care policy platform.

Working Together for Better Eye Care tables six, readily achievable actions that utilise optometrists, working collaboratively, to make a genuine difference in providing timely, sustainable and effective eye care to the Australian community.

Sarah added that, ‘The more emails that our Federal MPs receive, the more chatter in Parliament House we can collectively generate and the more chance we have to initiate change.

‘The last time we asked for your involvement in a similar campaign, you generated over 4,000 emails – so let’s smash this’!

Join the campaign here