CHARLESTON — Lawmakers sent to Gov. Joe Manchin late Saturday a bill that disallows laser surgery by optometrists but possibly opens this door if and when their plea goes before the rule-making process.

Conferees toiled all day before coming to terms about an hour before the midnight deadline, but only after Sen. Evan Jenkins, D-Cabell, fighting against the distractions of a West Virginia University basketball game, made a last-ditch effort to derail it.

Jenkins felt the bill was flawed by stating in one section an optometrist must be approved by the board before seeing patients, but in another says one may practice before actually achieving a passing grade on an exam.

“This is a significant safety provision that puts our patients at risk, should the board decide to allow somebody to practice optometry without having taken the exam,” the senator said.

But Sen. Ed Bowman, D-Hancock, who steered the original laser-permissible bill through the Senate, sharply disagreed.

Bowman reminded Jenkins the bill had gone through the entire Legislature, hearings, committee examinations, and no one raised that issue.

“I’m sure if this would have been a problem, would the ophthalmologists have not brought this to our attention in the past?” he asked.

“They would have. They did not.”

As Jenkins and Bowman sparred one last time, with President Earl Ray Tomblin, D-Logan, at the podium, the rest of the chamber made a bee-line to the Junior Lounge to grab the final two minutes of West Virginia University’s triumph in the Big East tournament. Every few seconds, a loud roar went up in the lounge, presumably signaling another Mountaineer field goal.

 Originally, the Senate wanted to allow argon laser trabeculoplasty, selective trabeculoplasty and peripheral iridotomy surgery, but the House abandoned the three lines of laser surgery as well as injections, after an intense scrutiny of the Senate bill by the Health and Human Resources Committee of Chairman Don Perdue, D-Wayne.

Ophthalmologists maintained they must undergo superior training and education, and are the true surgeons, the only ones qualified to operate on patients’ eyes.

On the other hand, optometrists countered they are required to be trained adequately to perform the procedures.

While laser surgery isn’t specifically allowed, the measure that Manchin will consider lets optometrists to take their case to the rule-making process.

That means the optometrists would appeal to a small contingent of legislators, rather than strike their case before the entire Legislature.

The measure became the most divisive and time-consuming in this otherwise lackluster session. At one point, it sharply divided the normally unified Senate in a floor debate that turned testy, chiefly over a failed attempt to send the Bowman-led measure through the Senate’s own health panel.

“Those two groups have been fighting for 20 years here,” Tomblin reflected, at session’s end, referring to optometrists and Opthalmologists.

“And it continues to grow. I never thought it (Senate debate) would get as nasty as it did.”

In a 28-5 vote that preceded House acceptance, Sens. Jesse Guills, R-Greenbrier, Mike Oliverio, D-Monongalia, Robert Plymale, D-Wayne, and Roman Prezioso, D-Marion, joined Jenkins in voting against it.

— E-mail: mannix@register-herald.com