Govt to appeal against child medical judgment

Press, 2 July 1985, Page 2

Govt to appeal against child medical judgment

PA Wellington The Government intends to appeal against last week’s High Court judgment that ruled the child general medical services benefit scheme to be invalid. The Acting Prime Minister, Mr Palmer, said the Cabinet had decided yesterday that the decision was not correct. An appeal would be lodged in the High Court at Auckland and would be determined by the Court of Appeal, he told reporters. Mr Justice Vautier last week ruled that the scheme was invalid because it was introduced with no legal basis. He said the main purpose of the scheme had been to control doctors’ fees. The Minister of Health, Dr Bassett, yesterday denied that and said: “The increased money that goes to the doctor is for the benefit of the patient. It will go into the pockets of that family.” The scheme introduced five months ago made doctors eligible for a subsidy of $9.50 for each child patient

provided they did not charge more than $3 on top of that. Mr Palmer said Dr Bassett would announce a new interim arrangement to protect those in the scheme declared to be invalid. There were about 200,000 children and 476 doctors in the scheme. “There will be no change in the fees for those children on the interim arrangement,” Mr Palmer said.

Dr Bassett would also invite the medical profession to come up with a scheme which would enable the Government to increase the child general medical services benefit to all children. The Government hoped those negotiations would begin quickly, Mr Palmer said. The main purpose of the Government’s policy was to ensure that parents who wished to take their children to a doctor were not deterred from doing so by the amount of money they might have to pay. It considered that policy to be sound, Mr Palmer said. The new arrangements would be run under the same section of the Social Security Act as the scheme which was criticised in the High Court, Mr Palmer said, but it would not be capable of being expanded to cover all doctors. He had advised the Cabinet in his capacity as Attor-ney-General to appeal the High Court decision.