Ire at medical fees ruling

Press, 12 May 1984, Page 1

Ire at medical fees ruling

PA Auckland Government guidelines on fees for doctors are an encroachment on a professional right, said the president of the Auckland division of the New Zealand Medical Association, Dr Harold Harding, yesterday. He was commenting on a Government-forged directive to doctors from the association yesterday to drop post-freeze consultancy fees to no more than a $1 above fees charged during the freeze. Dr Harding said that it was the first time any suggestion of control of a professional body’s fees by regulation had been made. “I wonder what the Society of Accountants or the Law Society thinks about this encroachment on a professional right?” Doctors were reacting angrily to the guidelines, he said, and he could well understand some doctors ignoring them, though he had not heard of any who would. Dr Harding said the Medical Association was a voluntary organisation and a large number of doctors did not belong to it and were not bound by the advice of Dr Dean Williams, chairman of the Medical Association. The Minister of Health, Mr Malcolm, said last evening that the guidelines on fees had not been set by the Government. “We have struck no deal with the New Zealand Medical Association,” he said, adding that the guidelines had come from the association. “It is the association saying to its own members they are above the limit,” he said. Dr Williams replied to Mr Malcolm’s comments last evening saying, “The Government has made it clear what it expects of us and we have passed it on to doctors. The association does not have the power to set fees.”

Farther report, page 2