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Analysis of optometry in South Africa stresses importance of legislation to access

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CHICAGO – A poster presented here at the World Council of Optometry annual meeting shows how legislation can affect the quality and accessibility of eye care services.

Vanessa Raquel Moodley, senior lecturer at the University of Kwa Zulu-Natal and chairperson of the Professional Board for Optometry and Dispensing Opticians, said in her poster that the majority of the population in southern Africa live in poverty and are often deprived of basic health care services.

“This deprivation is exacerbated by the absence of legislation,” she noted.

“Optometry, designed to support a private sector that served only 17% of the population, had to undergo significant transformation,” Prof. Moodley said. “The regulatory body embarked on a process to align the legislation for all South Africans to have access to quality optometric care. Graduates had to have competencies and skills relevant to the African context.

“The introduction of regulations and legislation has helped in creating an environment where the educational programs undertake self-evaluations that are validated by an external process, thus enhancing the overall quality of optometric education in South Africa,” she reported in her poster.

“Clinical practice standards and legislative development encourage the practitioner to maintain a high level of practice standards and engage in ongoing professional development to maintain clinical competencies,” she said. “Regulatory processes defining ethical and acceptable business practices have been legislated to ensure that patients in the private and public sector receive quality care and have recourse when this care – and ultimately their rights – is compromised.”

The regulations and legislation address national board exams, scope expansion, institutional accreditation, competencies for education, business practices policy, practice audits and human rights and ethics policy.