THE MATERNITY BENEFITS

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22768, 21 July 1939, Page 7

THE MATERNITY BENEFITS

REGULATIONS AMENDED ATTENDANCE by doctors AT NIGHT (' ’ crazsa association tbliobau ' WELLINGTON, July 20. Notice is contained in to-day’s Gazette of an amendment to Clause 18 of the Maternity Benefits Regulations, deleting the requirement that a patiept, except in case of emergency, should endeavour to refrain from summoning a maternity benefits medical practitioner to visit during night hours or on holidays. Commenting on the amendment, the Minister for Health (the Hon. P. Fraser) said the original provision was inserted to protect medical practitioners from possible unreasonable demands for unnecessary attention. Further consideration of the matter, including consultation with doctors engaged in the administration of the maternity benefits, showed that the possibility of iheir being unduly harassed was not likely to develop, while on the other hand there was a danger that the provision Might give rise to unnecessary fears on the part of patients, who might refrain from calling a doctor when a visit was necessary. Additional maternity benefits regulations, of which notice is given in today’s Gazette, have been made in respect of maternity cases who, through some actual or suspected abnormal condition, cannot be effectively cared for in a maternity hospital, and have to be admitted or transferred to a medical and surgical hospital. The former provisions with respect to maternity benefits did not permit of payment of the maternity benefits in cases of this kind, and it is to overcome the anomaly that a provision is now made enabling payment of the maternity benefits in respect of hospital treatment in these exceptional cases.