MEDICAL SERVICES

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 190, 9 May 1941, Page 6

MEDICAL SERVICES

Position Of Friendly Society Members

ADVICE TO CONTINUE LODGE SYSTEM

Dominion Special Service. AUCKLAND, May 8.

Friendly society lodge members in Auckland have been advised to continue the present arrangements with the doctors and to contribute their medical dues until further notice. This decision was announced by the societies’ Medical Institute Board after consideration of the Government’s proposal to refund to the lodges the medical dues of financial members who had been unable to secure the services of doctors under the State medical benefits scheme-

The Minister of Health, Mr. Nordmeyer, announced the Government’s offer on April 23, and on April 25 Dr Jamieson, chairman of the National Health Insurance Committee of the British Medical Association, said that the friendly societies would do well to assure themselves upon the equity and legality of the proposed procedure and the likelihood of its permanence, and whether the lodge surgeon would continue bis present contract under conditions which would put both himself and his lodge under political domination, and might increase his work to an unsupportable extent. Mr. W. H. MeCombie, secretary of the Auckland United Friendly Societies’ Medical Institute, said today that the Government had not made adequate provision for medical services, and the board had no alternative than to advise its members to continue with the lodge system. "There seems little or no prospect of a comprehensive State medical benefits scheme in the near future,” be concluded. “The medical men have line with the Government scheme, and made it clear that they won’t get into that’s that.”