Ophthalmologists are urging provincial governments not to move ahead with plans that would allow optometrists to perform some surgeries and laser eye treatments, which are currently outside their scope of practice.

Dr. Nina Ahuja, president-elect of the Canadian Ophthalmological Society, says surgery must remain in the hands of physicians and handing over even seemingly minor procedures to optometrists is “200 per cent unsafe” for patients.

Both professions specialize in the eye, but optometrists are primary eye care providers with a four-year professional degree after an undergraduate education, and ophthalmologists are surgeons and eye disease doctors with at least nine years of medical training, also after undergrad.

Ahuja is responding to news that the governments of Ontario and Alb

See Full Page