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Genevieve Quilty

The year is spinning towards its end, with many of you gearing up for December, the busiest period of the year. I have enjoyed meeting members at conferences during the past few weeks: ProVision, Eyecare Plus and an Optometry NSW/ACT CPD event in mid-October in Canberra.

The Optometry Board of Australia registration renewal period has commenced for all optometrists. Check out our enhanced online member service, My CPD Record, to ensure you have met you CPD registration requirements and if you need further points, consider Optometry South Australia’s Blue Sky congress, which will take place on 6-8 November.

October 9 was World Sight Day, which was a great opportunity for all in the sector to talk about clear vision and eye health, and encourage the public to visit you in your practice. The Federal Health Minister distributed a media release on the day. Your policy team hosted a table of key stakeholders from the Department of Health, Veterans’ Affairs and like-minded professional associations at the National Press Club, where the new chair of Vision 2020 Australia, the former Minister for Immigration, Amanda Vanstone, gave a lively talk on the need to act early to reduce the levels of avoidable blindness here and overseas.

At Optometry Australia, to mark World Sight Day, we enjoyed celebrating many Eye Health Heroes in our profession. We focus on a few of these heroes in this issue of Australian Optometry. During October, we were successful in a number of states in getting additional radio, print and television coverage to encourage people to have their eyes tested, showcasing interesting stories about members of Optometry Australia.

This work we are doing on your behalf is part of Optometry Australia’s renewed push to raise awareness of optometry’s role in meeting the growing eye health needs of Australians, complementing the Children’s Vision campaign launched recently. We look forward to promoting more local eye health stories in the months to come. If you have an interesting story, please contact me at g.quilty@optometry.org.au. In a crowded media market where we are bombarded with information, it is the human interest stories that are making an impact.

Optometry Australia put the finishing touches on an important submission to the inaugural review of the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme by Kim Snowball in October. You can access a copy online and read about the key elements of the submission we have made on your behalf in Australian Optometry. We will be following up this submission with key meetings with each health minister around Australia in the next few months as they consider the review themselves and any need for changes to the registration schemes.

Optometry Australia feels our regulatory board has served the profession well and has rejected the suggestion that the Optometry Board of Australia ought to be folded into a super regulatory board for nine smaller professions. We will keep you updated as these meetings take place around Australia.

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Acknowledgement of Country

In the spirit of reconciliation Optometry Australia acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.