THE FREE MEDICAL SERVICE

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 127, 22 February 1941, Page 10

THE FREE MEDICAL SERVICE

Li remains to be seen whether the Governments attempt to ioice the position in regard to the introduction of free medical services will o-ive satisfaction to the public. It is more than doubtful. According to the regulations gazetted this week, people are promised free consultations, visits to home or hospital if necessary,, and in general benefits which will demand from every general practitioner who comes into the scheme all his time and energies. There will be no paucity of patients suffering from real or imaginary complaints, and any doctor attempting to deal firmly and summarily with the class of hypochondriac who runs to the consulting room with trilling symptoms and fancied ailments will have at the back of his mind the possibility of having to waste time and energy replying to complaints sent forward to the Departmental Committee appointed to receive and deal with these. This bv no means exaggerated vision of the scheme at woik emphasizes the unwisdom of introducing it in the face of two most serious obstacles to its satisfactory operation. One is the refusal of the representative body of the medical profession to extend its cooperation to the scheme; the other, which is among the principal arguments adduced in justification of the attitude of the 8.M.A., is the fact that the war has made such heavy inroads on the personnel ot the profession for service overseas —the figure is put as high as .2o per cent, of the total—that even if they were disposed to tender lull co-operation, the doctors would find the task of coping with the demands on their time and energies a physical impossibility. In such adverse conditions the Government would be fully jusliltein postponing the introduction of the scheme until at least the end of the war, and, in the interval, making use of the time and oppor;umt\ gained to seek a working arrangement satisfactory to the medical profession. Its action in Hying in the face of circumstances can only mean that it is anxious to make some gesture of fulfilment of its previous election promises before it goes to the country again. But what satisfaction is a patchwork scheme —for a study of the regulations will show that it is nothing more —likely to give to a public led to expect a full and efficient service. It is easy to read in the statement by the Minister of Health, Mr. Nordmeyer, on the subject, that he is not altogether happy about the demands that arc likely’ tn be made upon the doctors who may come into the scheme. Political expediency in this matter seems to have prevailed over common sense.