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Non-Licensed Staff Providing Dispensing Services Recently, we received the following correspondence from a BC Optician: "I am an Optician, but non-licensed staff are doing the same jobs at work as I am: measurements, checking jobs, repairs, and dispensing. All they should be doing is selling. What can you do to help BC Opticians?" ********************
The Interim Executive Director for the OBC: Opticians of British Columbia, replied as follows: " I understand your concern and we are doing our best to address this issue. Currently the B.C. regulation for Opticians does allow pretty liberally for non-opticians to perform the work of an Optician. For government the test of who can perform a certain function is whether or not that function has any risk of harm to the public. The OBC: Opticians of British Columbia believes that the list of activities that can only be performed by Opticians in a retail dispensary should be somewhat more restrictive than it currently is. To understand the Ministry's reasoning it's a good exercise to think of all the tasks that are performed in the dispensary and decide whether on its own it represents a risk of harm to the public. For example, is taking a seg height a risk of harm? We would say that if the measurement is checked by an Optician when the order is taken and again before it is dispensed, there isn't likely a risk of harm. If the entire pair of glasses is measured, ordered, produced and dispensed without an Optician having any supervisory role at all, we would say that unregulated dispensing has taken place. The OBC: Opticians of British Columbia has submitted a position paper to the Ministry commenting strongly on the Ministry's draft Reserved Activities Regulation because we don't believe it goes far enough. That paper along with the Ministry's regulation is posted on our website at www.opticians.bc.ca under the link 'for opticians' and the sub-link 'documents'. As well, our Interim Executive Director and our Vice President have met with the policy advisor to the Minister to further detail our concerns. One of the outcomes of that meeting was a request from the Ministry advisor for further supporting information from us which we are currently developing and will supply. But these are legislative concerns that we can address and they will be ongoing. You are concerned with the day-to-day business of dispensing and you may be faced with what you believe to be a bending of the Standards of Practice set out the College of Opticians of British Columbia. This is something you can take action on or, if you provide us with the appropriate information, that we can take action on by submitting a complaint to the College. If you believe unlicensed practice is taking place in your dispensary or if you are being required by anybody to overlook what you know to be cases of unlicensed practice nothing can be done unless you tell somebody about it. You need to be willing to report such infractions to the College of Opticians of British Columbia. I am attaching a copy of the Standards of Practice the College has posted on its website. It is in draft form and the College is inviting B.C. Opticians and other stakeholders to comment on this Standard. Naturally the OBC: Opticians of British Columbia will be submitting its comments. If you have anything specific you would like us to include please feel free to identify the issue and we will gladly include it in our submission. You are encouraged, of course, to submit your own thoughts to the College. Sometimes it's easier to talk through these things so if you would like to give us a call please feel free to do so. 1-866-920-5911."
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