MEDICAL SURVEY

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 83, 8 April 1943, Page 4

MEDICAL SURVEY

NEED IN DOMINION

WEAKNESSES MAR SYSTEM

The proposal that there should be an authoritative survey of medical services in New Zealand is made by Mr. Douglas Robb, of Auckland, in an article in the New Zealand Medical Journal. He points out that in the United Kingdom, the United States and also in Australia, investigations and preparations are going on, based on the expectation of major changes after the war; and the need in New Zealand is not less. The survey, Mr. Robb suggests, should be conducted by a committee (over which either the Minister of Health or a Supreme Court judge should prescribe) with three medical members, including the DirectorGeneral of Health, and lay members including a member of Parliament, a local body member, and/or a hospital board member, and an accountant. He suggests that the scope of the inquiry should be as follows: — (1) The pattern of general medical practice which will meet the needs of the community under modern conditions, and give the best opportunities to the men working in it to achieve the desired objects. (2) The work of consultants and specialists; their proper spheres and mode of service, their training, and recognition. (3) The public hospitals, their scope in relation to (1) and (2), their organisation as a system, their control, their co-ordination with other services, and their internal organisation and standards. (4) Medical education, from all aspects and at all stages, considered in the light of the findings of (1), (2) and (3), the recruitment of students, their numbers, the curriculum, the utilisation of the best resources in the country for the purposes of undergraduate and post-graduate training, and the relation of these matters to medical research, all to come under review. (5) The relation of the present Health Department and its officers to a reformed medical service as arrived at above. (6) The recruitment, training-, spheres of work and conditions of work of nurses. (7) Ancillary services, ' such as physiotherapy, X-ray and laboratory technicians, librarians and literary photographic and artistic assistants, et6„ (S) Finance for the whole; the clearing up of anomalies between the Government and local bodies. "Mortal Weakness" Pointed Out Although the present system of social security benefits has done something for the sick man, Mr. Robb says there is a "mortal weakness" in the present arrangements. "No thought has been given or provision made for the life of medicine," he continued. "The easy assumption was made that drugs and doctors were there, and all that had to be done was to distribute them and their services. - No one asked if they were already of good quality, or whether they could be improved, and if so, how. No one wondered what steps would be necessary to ensure that the good product was kept in good order, and perhaps made better with time. To do all these things it would have been necessary to consider all matters relating to the selection and training of medical students, and also to take thought for the qualified man. Arrangements for the proper training of each man for his chosen work would need completion by insisting on regular periods of postgraduate study, and the provision of facilities for this, together with leave for the man to get it. Under maternity and pharmaceutical benefits a percentage of the money should have been earmarked for teaching and research in each subject. A pharmacological institute where native New Zealand products could be investigated, and reliable arrangements made for the local manufactui e or importation of new substances with accurate standardisation and assurance of efficacy, is a clamant need. "Such things are not luxuries, they are necessities, if our fellow men are to get the best help from modern medicine, and surely we cannot be content with less."