JACKSON - For years, legislation expanding the role of optometrists has failed to get past the Mississippi House.
On Tuesday, it did.
The bill, which passed the House 82-35, would allow optometrists to prescribe narcotic drugs and perform "minor" surgical procedures.
"For 16 years I opposed this legislation and then four years ago I started supporting it because the facts were so overwhelming in favor of it," said Rep. Steve Holland, the chairman of the House Public Health and Human Services Committee.
The bill now goes to the Senate.
Supporters said the bill would help provide rural residents with access to eye care. Ophthalmologists oppose the bill, saying optometrists lack the necessary medical background.
Ophthalmologists have more extensive training than optometrists.
There are about 200 optometrists in 76 of Mississippi's 82 counties, said Holland, D-Plantersville. He said of the 130 ophthalmologists in the state, one-third are in the Jackson metropolitan area.
"None live in the rural areas of the state," Holland said.
Forty-one states, including those surrounding Mississippi, allow optometrists to prescribe pain killers and other narcotics.
In Mississippi, optometrists can only use external medicine on their patients.
Under the House bill, optometrists could prescribe Schedule III, IV, and V narcotics.
Schedule III narcotics include hydrocodone and LoraTabs, both addictive street drugs, said Beth Clay, an attorney lobbying for the Mississippi Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat Association.
"It's creating a substandard of care for the rural or poor people who don't know the difference," Clay said. "They're going to think they've seen somebody who's been to medical school."
Lawmakers spent two hours debating whether optometrists receive the necessary training to offer the services outlined in the bill.
Optometrists are graduates of optometry schools who provide primary eye care.
Ophthalmologists are medical school graduates who work with the whole eye and may perform surgery.
"We have a broad base of medical knowledge the first two years and the last two years we concentrate on the eye," said optometrist Glen Stribling, who has offices in Byram and Crystal Springs.
"We're asking for the privilege to treat eye disease," Stribling said. "We're not going to be doing sinus surgeries, removing massive tumors behind the eye."
Rep. Virginia Carlton, R-Columbia, unsuccessfully tried to amend the bill to require optometrists be trained in the handling of patients who experience anaphylactic shock while undergoing surgery.
Carlton voted against the bill.
"This bill, though, expands the scope greatly in one fell swoop. I had hoped to have some educational requirements in there," Carlton said.
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