OUTPATIENTS’ SERVICE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 60, Issue 251, 31 July 1940, Page 4

OUTPATIENTS’ SERVICE

“DEPENDENT ON DOCTORS”

(Special to the “ Guardian.”) CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. When the Government completes its arrangements with the doctors for the introduction of the general practitioner service, free hospital outpatient treatment will become available to the public, said the Minister for Health (the Hon. H. T. Armstrong) yesterday. The sum of £20,000 has been allocated in the Estimates for outpatient services, and this will be available for the remainder of the year, when the medical practitioner service provided for the in the Social Security Act becomes operative, said the Minister. He regretted very much the unfortunate position in which out-patients found themselves in being required to pay for treatment through the act not being put fully into operation. But the Health Department was doing its best to expedite the whole thing being brought to finality with the medical profession. Really the three questions of free outpatient treatment, the general practitioner service, and the pharmaceutical service were bound up v. ith the negotiations with the doctors. The Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. P. Eraser) had arranged that these matters should be considered with the Minister for Finance (the Hon. W. Nash) when he (fMr Armstrong) returned to Wellington.