GENERAL PRACTITIONER SERVICE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 211, 6 September 1941, Page 6

GENERAL PRACTITIONER SERVICE

'J'HE "general practitioner service," as originally proposed by the Government, was to be given by the doctors under contract with the State. The doctors refused to make such contracts. In December last the Social Security Act was amended to enable a doctor to contract with the patient, and be paid for his services out of the Social Security Fund. This system also was not accepted by the 8.M.A., and only a few doctors are working under it. Now the Government proposes another change, under which the doctor will be paid, at a fixed rate, for every attendance on the patient. This seems to be an adaptation of the friendly society lodge system, under which the lodge pays the doctor the whole fee, and collects from the member that part of it for which he is individually responsible. In the course of the long negotiations between the Government and the B.M.A. the question of payment by attendance has been considered, and the 8.M.A., in an official publication, remarked that it "had some strong supporters in the profession." In September or October of last year the B.M.A. representatives agreed among themselves to reconsider, inter alia, the question of whether a payment by attendance system could be entered upon, but it found that the Government "would not be satisfied with any such arrangement," Now, apparently, the Government is prepared to be satisfied with it, and it goes further, by proposing to make it, in effect, compulsory. Why compulsion should be proposed for a system which.the B.M.A. was evidently prepared to consider entering upon voluntarily is not clear, and it is a legitimate inference that the Government,* in. vie>v of a possible election within two months, wants to be.able"to°say>.that\he general practitioner service is in operation. Such q a° ° mqtive should© have no influence at all in an important change in' the" people's medical service. Nevertheless, it isq clearly" incumbent upon the medical profession to consider the new merits, bearing in mind, as the public will, that is° the thiwi scheme which the Government has oThat is Q notf to say' that ; it' a iff.necessarily an improvement on the two which cPrecededit.'Vr 'thatoife'°apparent advantages are not but putmcjwillrhave to° De/'crinvinced that, if such is the it- 1 is; reasonable 4n<P&>urfdly based.