NEGATIVE VOTE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 67, Issue 54, 13 December 1946, Page 3

NEGATIVE VOTE

B.M.A AND HEALTH ACT DOCTORS WILL BE LOYAL TO PATIENTS (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright.) (Rec. 11.10 a.m.) LONDON, Dec. 12. A British Medical Association plebiscite on whether doctors should negotiate with the Government on the National Health Act regulations resulted in 18,972 for and 23,110 against. Eighty-one per cent of civilian doctors voted, of whom 44 per cent were for and 56 per cent against negotiations. Thirty-two per cent of service doctors voted, of whom 56 were for and 44 per cent against. Dr. H. Guy Dain, chairman of the B.M.A. Council, said the council had decided that the negative majority was sufficient to justify not entering discussions, with the Minister. The B.M.A. representative body would meet on January 28 to empower the negotiating committee to inform the Minister that, because of the divergence of principles of the profession and the provisions of the National Health Act, the committee was unable to enter discussions. Mr Dain added: ‘The Minister may have many offers of help hut none from the main body representing the profession. The Act is not a conscription act, and the decision not to join the service is not disloyalty to the country. Whatever the outcome, the doctors will be loyal to the patients.” Dr. Dain said the Act was inoperable without the B.M.A. co-operating. Dr. Charles Hill, B.M.A. secretary, said the legal opinion was- that the Act left is free for doctors to join the service or no. “You can no longer postpone consultations which are a necessary preliminary to the setting up of administrative machinery,” said Mr Aneurin Bevan in a statement on the B.M.A. plebiscite. “I am therefore- consulting all the many other interests which will be concerned in the national health- service.” Mr Bevan hoped that wiser counsels would have prevailed before the B.M.A. decided to recommend to a special representative meeting that the profession should refuse to discuss with him steps to bring the national health service into operation. Dr. Hill said: “There is no question of a strike. . The medical profession is going to go on doing its job. An official of the. Socialist Medical Association said: “It is clear that the B.M.A. is split from top to bottom. The way the service doctors voted shows 'that the younger doctors favour the new service.”