'Doctors needed’

Press, 14 May 1981, Page 4

'Doctors needed’

Parliamentary Reporter ' The Minister of Health (Mr I Gair) was unwise to say that New Zealand had too many j doctors. Labour’s shadow; Minister of Health (Dr M. E. R. Bassett) told the Labour ; Party conference in Wellington yesterday. 1 People in Porirua, west and south Auckland, the suburbs of Christchurch and Dunedin, and the rural backblocks still needed doctors, he said. The cut in dental nurse intakes was false economy, he said. Under a Labour Government dental nurses would be attached to public hospitals. « Infant mortality in .New f Zealand was increasing,; partly because of the demise ' of Plunket nurse home visits

I and the ending of visits by j doctor and nurse teams to . schools. ‘ This demise of back-up f services at schools and in the i home had increased hospii tali-sation rates, he said. About 70 per cent of the total health vote was now spent on hospitals and hospital treatment. A Labour government would put doctors in schools, ip pre-school institutions, and in community care. Dr Bassett said health care in schools would probably have cleared up the prevalent “glue ear” ip children. One child in five suffered from this, and it caused deafness if not treated. 1 A labour government would increase the general

medical services benefit to doctors, subject to doctors lowering their fees. The reason for the decline in primary health care had been the soaring cost of medical treatment to the patient, Dr Bassett said. Transport problems and increasing specialisation by doctors were also factors. For the first time since 1941, patient visits to general practitioners declined last year, he said. Visits were down by 600,000, but although this saved the Government $847,000 this would be lost in more hospital treatment later. To prevent overloading of accident and emergency wards, Labour would improve night and week-end services, he said.