STATE MEDICAL SERVICE

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23299, 8 April 1941, Page 8

STATE MEDICAL SERVICE

DOCTORS SEE DANGERS IN COERCION

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, April 7. •“Lately there has been talk of coercion being applied to doctors." says a statement- issued by the British Medical Association. “We are all familiar with the phrase, ‘the compelling force of the law.’ The law necessarily has powers of compulsion. These are exercised, for example, in dealing with criminals and other infringers of the law. “Doctors, however, do not come into that category, for their action in refusing medical benefit contracts is strictly within the law. Coercion, however, has a more sinister sound. It is possible, indirectly, without calling the law. It does not require to be physical; it may be applied as affecting material interests and even by influencing morals. “Of recent years we have become familiar with many variants of the technique in certain totalitarian countries. It is a dangerous and alarming kind of word when heard in a British community. It is startling when applied to a small body of hard-work-ing men wholly devoted to the arts of peace and the alleviation of suffering. “What term should be employed if a member of the Government party informs doctors that if they do not accept the contract, another will be introduced who will? What is the word which expresses the position when a Minister calls an alien practitioner to his office and reminds him of the hospitality extended to him by the Government? Those tactics touch a chord of memory in our alien brotherhood? Is a curse following them even here?

“Now legislative coercion is held out. There is no doubt about the power, but what of the effects? Who will suffer? Is a coerced doctor likely to be efficient? “There is more in medical practice than in signing a contract card to perform ‘all proper and necessary services of medical practitioners except such services as may, in accordance with the regulations, be excluded therefrom, and receiving 15s.’ Are the finer quali-, ties so requisite for dealing with the sick at all likely to be stimulated by coercion?

“Coercion is a spreading disease. We have noted its epidemic character in Europe when it has attacked doctors. Which way will ifspread? Naturally to their patients of all classes.”

MINISTER’S COMMENT

SUGGESTION OF COERCION “ PREPOSTEROUS ”

WELLINGTON, April 7,

Asked this evening to comment on the statement of the British Medical Association that he attempted to coerce an alien doctor to undertake the medical benefits scheme, the Minister for Health (the Hon. A, H. Nordmeyer) said that the idea. was preposterous and quite untrue. Knowing that it had lost public confidence, the British Medical Association was now trying to redeem lost prestige by making baseless charges against the Government. The hysterical language employed in the latest statement would deceive no one.