OPTICIAN SERVICE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 15, 19 January 1944, Page 4

OPTICIAN SERVICE

CARE FOR SOLDIERS' SIGHT

New Zealand has led the world in the provision of optician services for the members of its Armed Forces, and it recently went a step further in the establishment of completely self-con-tained mobile vans for work in New Zealand and overseas. One unit, designed and built in Wellington, will be sent to the Middle East to assist the work already being done by the New Zealand hospital there, and will provide a service far ahead of anything being done by any of the Allies. In the first 12 months after the service was established in August, 1942, over 11,000 soldiers received full visual examinations, and over 8000 were provided with Army type spectacles. The Army maintains, at home and abroad, a total of 14 optician units, some of them static, the purpose of the service being to ensure that all soldiers are "visually fit." The latest unit, intended for the Middle East, was designed by Captain G. E. Cox, Wellington, and built by private firms in the city. The best technical equipment available among the Allied countries was bought, until the unit is considered to be better than anything available among private opticians. New Zealand was the first country to introduce an optician service in the Army, said Captain Cox today, and the standard reached is an exceptionally high one. The unit he had designed consisted of two mobile vans, one a refraction van, 25ft in length, and the other a complete workshop, able to grind lenses from the raw glass and to make Army pattern spectacles. The unit had its own power plant and water supply, and could operate anywhere. .... The detailed visual examination given to soldiers was as high as or higher than anywhere • else in the country, said Captain Cox, in praising the ability and high performance of the opticians in the New Zealand Army. All soldiers were given a brief examination, and those who needed it were then given an examination lasting about an hour. From the latter were selected those who required further treatment or spectacles. The service, of course, co-operated fully with the medical and dental services of the Army in tracing physical or visual weaknesses. Australia was following the example set by New Zealand, he said, but at present the United States provided only mobile workshops. England was far behind in the provision of a similar service. The refraction van was unique, but was considered essential for the service aimed at. The optician service had more than proved its worth, and praise for its work and the detailed examinations given in New Zealand had been received from the Middle East.