MEDICAL "BLACK SHEEP."

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 12903, 7 September 1907, Page 9

MEDICAL "BLACK SHEEP."

THE HON. J. BARB'S ALLEGATIONS.

COMMERCIALISM IN THE PROFESSION.

(special to "tiib rsias.")

WELLINGTON, September 6.

A discussion on the medical profession, cropped up in the Legislative Cmmoil this afternoon during the debat© on infant life protection. The subject was raised *by the Hon. J. Barr (Chrietchurch), who declared there were men .in the medical profession who were not a credit to it. Hβ had known an old country medical man so heartleae es to tell the parent of a sick child that it would not live, and there was no need to trouble, seeing that there were others, and it would not be missed. The day had oome, he said, when wo would have to take the medical profession out of commercialism. They viewed things from tJie point of pounds, shillings and pence. Doctors liad com© to the bouse and ueked if they were going to get their money before they attended the patient, or they would have nothing to do with the case. This was the curee of commercialism. Medical men were not called in by the poorer classes until the last moment.

Dr. Colline: That is not the fault of the medical man.

Mr Barr: The wages of the individual worker are 6O low and the medical fees are so high that the parents hesitate because they cannot afford the fees. They hang back and try their little remedies.

Dr. Collins: There are the hospitals. Mr Barr replied that were* only in the centres of population. Doctors charges in New Zealand were altogether too exorbitant for the working man, he continued, and the hesitation which was displayed in calling tho doctor was a cause of innumerable deaths. Mr T. Kennedy Maedonald promptly took the other side of tho question. He declared that a most unwarranted attack had been made upon the medical profession by a gentleman who woe ignorant of the conditions of colonial life. The previous speaker had not lived long enough in the colony, nor mixed with the various classes of society, to understand the conditions. A colonial experience of fifty-three years enabled him (Mr Maedonald) to speak with some knowledge of the whole question, and the attack which had been delivered was tho worst, the most unfair and cruel, which had been delivered in regard to the medical profession. Ho had mixed with the members of tho profession, and had found no m«n mono benevolejit, more prepared to make sacrifices. No profession had lees. of the commercial spirit; no profession did more for nothing than the medical profession. If hie friend knew the amount of money whioh was written off tho books of the medical profession he would be perfectly amazed. For every twelve visits made by the medical men, only seven or eight were charged for, one-third of the work of the ordinary doctor being done for nothing. Ho hoped that Before the previous speaker was much older, he would take the opportunity of mixing very freely with the gentlemen he had condemned, and see their account books. Then he would realise what a grave in justioe he had done the medical profession in his speech. There were "black sheep" in every profession, but it wee a very rare thing to find in th© medical profession a man so sordid ai pictured by the Hon. Mr Barr. Mr Barr explairied that ho did not slander the whole medical profession. It was in regard to certain, members of it that he nad spoken, and ho had given his experiences. He could give others. The Government should take the whole medical profession under its control, because although there were honourable members in the profession, as in every other, there wore a considerable number of what he still hd<l were "black sheep." (Cries of "No, Dr. Collins: When you say there are a number of "black sheep." it i* a slander. Probably uny experience ts larger than yours, * ■ '