Sign Lands Optometrist In Hot Water
Sydney Morning Herald
Friday May 14, 1993
Bondi Junction optometrist Anthony Masnick has been found guilty of professional misconduct by a Board of Optometrical Registration inquiry this week.
He was duly cautioned for breaching the advertising section of the Optometrists Regulations.
In October 1991 Masnick placed a 10 cm square, handwritten sign 1.2 metres inside the window of his practice, which offered "discontinued frames sale at$40".
Under the regulations, a registered optometrist is not permitted to advertise, or otherwise solicit, for optometrical business except with the written permission of the board.
Masnick's brother Keith Masnick, who is also board chairman, commented: "He's just one more victim of an incompetent Act, and a series of governments which really just don't seem to care.
"All the public see is 'professional misconduct' and they think he's been raping patients or ripping off Medicare - when all he's got is a sign 10 cm square saying 'you can have your glasses for $40'.
"Almost all the complaints against optometrists in the five years I've been on the board have been from other optometrists - about marketing and advertising.
"But people are using every means possible to get some kind of competitive edge. It's petty, bloody-minded and selfish."
Anthony Masnick described his conviction as the result of a "vendetta"against him and his brother.
"To my knowledge, nobody has ever been charged with having a sign inside their premises," he said.
"Maybe if the sign was two metres tall and 5 cm from the window I could understand. But this wasn't a large sign."
Masnick also said optometrists, who were prevented from advertising their spectacles, could not compete with big optical dispensers like OPSM "which can do whatever they like".
"Hopefully it will be changed. But it will be too late for me," he said.
"The board has been lobbying the Government for 11 years in an attempt to have the draconian legislation, which was passed in 1930, redrafted and brought into the 20th century."
Ross Thornton, spokesman for Health Minister Ron Phillips, said: "This bill has been 10 years in the drafting. But the final draft is expected to go to Cabinet very soon.
"The board brought to our attention the problems with the current Act in terms of advertising and this will be addressed in the bill."
© 1993 Sydney Morning Herald
