Decision Soon On Maternity Benefit

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31880, 7 January 1969, Page 1

Decision Soon On Maternity Benefit

(From Our Own Reporter) WELLINGTON, January 6. A decision on new levels of maternity services benefits will be one of the first jobs for the Cabinet after it reassembles on January 21.

Ministers deferred a decision on recommendations for average increases of more than 50 per cent late last year. But the new scales are Intended to take effect from January 1 and will now have to be made retrospective. If agreement cannot be secured, there is provision for the issue to go to arbitration, although it has never been necessary to have recourse to such a step.

The recommendations were made by agreement between the parties, after months of negotiation by the Treasury, Health Department representatives, and delegates of the Medical Association of New Zealand, under the independent chairmanship of a former State Services Commission

chairman, Mr L. A. Atkinson.! The benefits are payable to j general practitioners, who may charge no more, and to! obstetric specialists, who may add a surcharge. The present rates of the main social security payments for maternity services are $1.05 for each ante-natal consultation, $14.70 for deliveries, and $3.15 for postnatal consultations.