Make-up of panel questioned

Press, 4 June 1982, Page 8

Make-up of panel questioned

Parliamentary reporter Professional medical groups feel that the Health Amendment (No. 2) Bill does not protect their representation on the proposed reconstituted Board of Health.

They say the bill also does not provide for groups to nominate, to the Minister of Health, representatives to the board. The Health and Welfare Select Committee has heard submissions on the bill.

The bill provides that 11 of the board’s 12 members be appointed by the GovernorGeneral on the recommendation of the Minister, after regard to the “experience and interests of the person, including his commercial and administrative experience," and the desirability that nine broad health sectors are represented. The North Canterbury

Hospital Board, the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers' Association, and the Nurses Association asked that medical groups be allowed to nominate persons. “The bill does not say where the Minister will get names from in the first instance, or how;" the Nurses’ Association said. The North Canterbury Hospital Board objected to the withdrawal from the Board of Health of a person representing a hospital board, and women's organisations objected to the dropping from the reconstituted board of a person “deemed to represent the interests of women and children." This role might be included in the “desirability" of representing on the new board the “family health areas,” they said. In the interests of equality at least five of the members

of the board should be women, said the National Organisation for Women, and the "Women’s Appointment File" should be consulted. •The Medical Association opposed the possibility that under the bill only one of the members — the DirectorGeneral of Health — might be a doctor. The board has 13 members now. seven of whom are doctors.

It wanted a guaranteed position on the board for one other doctor, after consultation with the Medical Association. The Pharmaceutical Manufacturers' Association said that the existing board, was too heavily weighted’ towards doctors and the Health Department.

It recommended that five of the board should be appointed on the nomination of the Medical Association, the Hospital Boards’ Association,

the Municipal and Counties associations, the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers’ Association, and the Pharmaceutical Society. The' Counties and Municipal associations objected to the removal of their automatic representation on the board. Local authorities had important planning and inspection roles in health care, and would protect the rural interest, thev said.

The North Canterbury Hospital Board said that the board could have a very wide executive authority which, while it might provide a very effective lobbying group to the Minister, could overlap the function of the Health Department.

The Dental Association sought rotational retirement of board members — onethird every year — to protect the board from "political pressures.”