Advocating for Eye Health
MDNZ represents the macular degeneration community to government and decision makers as a trustee of Eye Health Aotearoa. Eye Health Aotearoa (EHA) is made up of key eye health organisations and our aim is to improve New Zealanders’ eye health by highlighting issues and solutions to government and decision makers.
In June, the Co-chairs of EHA, John Mulka and Chrissie Cowan, made an oral submission to the Parliamentary Petitions Committee to recommend that the government fund the first Aotearoa Eye Health survey.
The Survey is essential to understand how many people in NZ live with a potentially blinding disease. These diseases must be carefully monitored, and treatment started as soon as possible. Early diagnosis and treatment have been shown to limit vision loss from some eye diseases.
While the Petitions Committee agreed a survey was a good idea in principle, it fell short of recommending a comprehensive National Eye Health Survey. You can view the oral submission at https://www.eyehealthaotearoa.org.nz/news
EHA representatives also met with the health spokespeople from the Act, Greens, Labour, National and NZ First parties to highlight the issues of concern regarding eye health and share our solutions that will save sight.
The two primary solutions to addressing inequities and avoidable blindness are; appointing a Clinical Director of Eye Health within the Ministry of Health (Manatū Hauora), and funding a National Eye Health Survey.
As this article is written before the elections, we don’t yet know who will govern Aotearoa New Zealand for the next three years. Eye Health Aotearoa has started to raise eye health issues with all the main political parties and will continue to do so once the new government is in place.
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