Public health care defended by G.P.

Press, 1 October 1983, Page 9

Public health care defended by G.P.

Public, not private, health insurance was the anser for poorer New Zealand families, said the president of the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners, Dr Selwyn Carson, yesterday. He was replying to a pediatric surgeon and Auckland Hospital Board member, Dr Stuart Ferguson, who had said that parents were “not really looking after their family” if they did not take out health insurance.

Dr Carson said private insurance was fine for those who could afford it. About half of New Zealanders were already covered in some way. But private schemes discriminated against the elderly and there were many others who were unemployed or on low incomes who could not afford the premiums.

“Private insurance is not the answer,” he said. "What is really needed is some kind of public insurance.” Dr Ferguson’s statement might make those parents who could not afford private insurance feel ’’pretty guilty.” Dr Ferguson had cited for two years or more that children had to wait for minor surgery at Princess Mary Hospital to back his contention that the public hospital system could not cope. Dr Carson, a Christchurch general practitioner, said he had never heard of a public hospital that did not have waiting lists. There were 600 children on the surgical waiting list and 483 waiting for a clinic consultation at Princess Mary Hospital, the Press Association reports. Auckland has the equiva-

lent of only two full-time pediatric surgeons for Princess Mary, but Australian cities of similar size had five, six, or seven. Dr Ferguson had said. “The public sector can no longer be expected to do everything and do it well. It should be providing services that cannot be done in private, such as major cardiac surgery and accident and cancer treatment,” he said. Parents usually “just took it on the chin” when they were told they might have to wait two years before their child had surgery. “There is nothing they can do about it.” Dr Ferguson emphasised that life-threatening or urgent cases were always seen immediately. He said he had no financial interest in any private health scheme.