The place of the optometric profession in the health services of the nation

Historical Significance: National health insurance was a matter of political debate since 1925 and proposals were put to Parliament by the Federal government in 1938 and an Act was passed in December 1948 to provide for the Federal Goverment to provide medical services, including dental and ophthalmic services, but the Act omitted optometry giving clear advantage to ophthamology. This Act never had effect. The National Health Act was passed in 1953. It excluded optometrists and a benefit for ophthalmological examinations that included refraction. This brochure relates to a political issue that occupied optometry from 1940s to the 1970s when Medibank was introduced by the Whitlam Labour Goverment and included a benefit for optometric examinations. See Wright C History of Australian Optometry for considerable detail about this issue.