MEDICAL BENEFITS

Evening Star, Issue 24054, 28 November 1941, Page 4

MEDICAL BENEFITS

doctors operating original SCHEME CAN PATIENTS HCW TRANSFER ? (P.A.) INVERCARGILL, Nov. 27. A question whether patients have legal rights of transfer from the lists ofany of the doctors who operated the original social security medical benefits scheme was raised at a sitting of the Armed Forces Appeal Board to-day during the bearing of an appeal for exemption from service on behalf of Dr Athol Ewan AleAlillan, of Invercargill. The appeal, which was adjourned from a previous sitting of the board, was adjourned until to-morrow morning pending a ruling from the Minister of Health, Hon. A, H. Nordraeyer. The appeal was made by the Hotel Workers’ Union. the Invercargill branch of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants of New Zealand, the Associated Society of Railway Servants. David Harris (union secretary), the Central Branch of the New Zealand Labour Party, and Peter Hennessey. The chairman (Air J. R. Bartholomew. S.AL) (plotcd a newspaper report of a statement by the department, and said that apparently _ those patients under the original capitation scheme of 15s a year for each patient wore not eligible for the new scheme. The original scheme seemed to bo the limit of their rights, which meant that those patients could have recourse only to one doctor, except in an emergency. Mr A. N, Haggitt (for the Crown) : They can resign. •‘‘We should have something authoritative before us,” said Air Bartholomew.

Counsel for the appellants, Mr Gordon J. ißeed, said lie would send a telegram to the Alinistcr.