Doctors oppose ‘drafting’

Press, 24 March 1980, Page 6

Doctors oppose ‘drafting’

PA Wellington The General Practitioner Society is totally opposed to the suggestion by the Minister of Health (Mr Gair) that compulsory service after graduation is a solution to the problem of poor distribution of doctors, according to its chairman (Dr R. M. Ridley-Smith). “There may be some merit in requiring all students to learn more about general practice, but the drafing of medical graduates to 24-hour a day jobs under duress has been’ tried, and it had failed,” Dr Ridley-Smith sad. “It is beginning to look as if the Minister is using the shortage of doctors in a very few. areas for political purposes. If he is really looking for answers, he should find out what the General Practitioner Society has been saying to succes-

sive Ministers of Health for the last eight years. “The Government is by far the biggest spender in the health field. Only the Government has the powers to introduce proper incentives.

“Mr Gair does not have to ‘invent’ anything and, in telling the doctors to come up with the answers, he is simply passing the buck. The average doctor is now earning about the same income as a Kawerau boilermaker. He does not mind spending rather more than 44 hours a week on duty in order to earn it, but the line has to be drawn somewhere. “If the Government supplied money to general practice on the same lavish scale that it gives it to public hospitals, most of the problems in general practice would disappear,” Dr RidleySmith said.