MEDICAL BENEFITS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 51, 1 March 1941, Page 8

MEDICAL BENEFITS

(To the Editor.) Sir,—The president of the B.M.A. is reported to have stated, referring to the social security medical benefits: "They will not. get any sort of general practitioner service worthy of the name. Whatever they legislate, we prefer to keep our safety in our own hands. We prefer t6 manage our own affairs." The present organisation of the B.M.A. is certainly the strongest trade or professional union in the world today out to protect the interests of.its members, and cannot be blamed for that. But when the Government of the people provides legislation for the benefit of the community as a whole, trade unions must toe the line or give a better answer than thinking of their own safety. The men who are called under the ballot cannot turn round and say they prefer to keep their safety in their own hands. The people of New Zealand have asked in no uncertain voice for better medical service than can be had from the catch as much as you can of the present service. It is regrettable that the president of the B.M.A. is expressing this as the attitude of his organisation, an organisation which I feel if a secret ballot was taken amongst the doctors of the country would be shown to be not the voice of the real doctors, who are the men with a high sense of their duties, and look upon the health of the nation as something to come before the wealth of individual doctors. —I am, etc.,

DOCTORS' BILLS