Optometry student provides powerful testimony to NHSC advisory council
May 28, 2009
Robert Foster provides powerful testimony before an influential council on the need to increase eye and vision care access in underserved areas
Robert Foster, a Pennsylvania College of Optometry (PCO) at Salus University class of 2009 leader, made the most of an opportunity secured by the AOA Washington office to provide testimony before the National Advisory Council of the National Health Service Corps (NHSC) during its May 7 meeting in Philadelphia.
Speaking on behalf of optometry students, Foster delivered rousing remarks on the need to expand access to eye and vision care in America’s rural and urban underserved areas.
In particular, Foster urged the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to end the exclusion of optometrists from the NHSC student loan repayment program and actively recruit ODs to serve in areas where access to eye and vision care professionals is severely limited or unavailable.
He referenced legislation now before Congress and backed by the AOA aimed at overturning the misguided decision in 2002 to make ODs ineligible for NHSC programs.
Foster cited a 2008 George Washington University (GWU) School of Public Health and Health Services study which found that only 11 percent of community health centers nationwide have full-time eye care professionals on staff and less than one-third (30 percent) even offer any on-site vision services.
He also highlighted that the GWU study recognizes the lack of access to eye care services through community health centers in rural and low-income communities as a “major public health crisis in America.”
Pro-optometry leaders in Congress, Reps. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.) and Joe Pitts (R-Penn.), have introduced the AOA-backed National Health Service Corps Improvement Act of 2009 (H.R. 1884) to end the exclusion of ODs from the National Health Service Corps (NHSC) student loan repayment and scholarship programs.
While H.R. 1884 garnered significant support on Capitol Hill in the 110th Congress, an even greater number of congressional co-sponsors will be needed for H.R. 1884 to be considered a priority in the 111th Congress.
Concerned doctors and optometry students are urged to visit the AOA Online Federal Legislative Action Center, www.aoa.org/DoctorCenter.xml, to immediately contact their senators and representatives and urge them to support H.R. 1884 and help make healthy vision a top priority by expanding access to eye and vision care in communities that need it most.
