DOCTORS NOT BRIBED

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 6, 2 October 1941, Page 9

DOCTORS NOT BRIBED

Reason For Amendments To Bill

“The doctors have never sought a higher fee, and the increase that is now offered is not for the purpose of bribing them,” said the Minister of Public Works, Mr. Armstrong, himself a former Minister of Health. He said lie did not know whether* the medical profession was now satisfied with the Bill. He sincerely hoped they were becau. e the Government wanted their co-operatiou in saving humanity. Mr. Doldge (Opposition, Tauranga) :

Hear, hear. We are with you there. Mr. Armstrong said that the increase in the fees was a result of consultation among the Government members, with the Labour movement and with the Health Department. The conclusion was arrived at that the doctors should be paid more. The doctors were entitled to reasonable remuneration, and he would treat them neither better nor worse than trade unionists. The doctors had declared that their objection to the Bill had been based on principle. It was a wonder that they had not declared war against the hospital system of the Dominion, the Health Department and the various State health services, which had been socialized some time ago. The reasons for the amendments to the Bill were that the Government wanted the cooperation of the profession, and also a free medical service to people who could ill afford to pay doctors’ bills. Certain people for religious and conscientious reasons did not want their doctors’ accounts paid by the Social Security Fund and wished to pay the doctors direct, hence the provision iu the Bill as it was now amended.

Referring to Opposition charges that the Bill meant socialization of the medical profession, Mr. Armstrong said that “this wild, red revolutionary socialism” was the same old cry. Nationalization of the medical profession would be a fact in every country before long. The member for Tauranga, at a public meeting, had said the same thing. There would be joy in Heaven over oue sinner that had repented, anyway. (Laughter). The bogey of socialism no longer held any terrors for. the people of New Zealand.

A Government member: It is worn out.

Opposition to every piece of humanitarian legislation from Seddon’s day till now had been beard from the same old Tories, the same old papers and the same old fossilized editors, continued the Minister. But in the words of Gracie Fields, “He’s dead, but he won’t lie down.” (Laughter). There would have been little or no difficulty with the doctors, but for the Tory vested interests outside the medical profession. A large percentage of the doctors would have welcomed the Bill as it was originally introduced, but were bluffed out of it. Only a few were opposed to it. The negotiators on behalf of the B.M.A. were wealthy men who did not care whether they earned another threepenny bit. The doctors as a whole, however, were hard-worked and did a lot for nothing. But why should any doctor have to work for nothing? “The people are going to get their medical attention because we are the Government,” said the Minister. - “If I understand Christianity aright, this Bill is Christian,” he added.