STATE MEDICAL SERVICE

Greymouth Evening Star, 21 October 1939, Page 12

STATE MEDICAL SERVICE

OVERSEAS DOCTORS’ OPINIONS [FEB PRESS ASSOCIATION.] DUNEDIN, October 20. Dr. J. B. Dawson, professor of.midwifery and gynaecology in the University of Otago, returned to Dunedin this week from a visit overseas, tn an interview, he summarised opinions held abroad on the subject, of socialisation of the practice of medicine. Dr. Dawson said that the visit which he paid to Aberdeen had for its purpose attendance at the annual meeting of the British Medical .Association. “Of interest to New Zealand.’’ he said, “may be the attitude of the medical profession as a whole to socialisation of medical services. The profession is alive to the demand and acknowledges the necessity on grounds, both humanitarian and national, of conserving the health of a dwindling population, and is therefore anxious to co-operate in any carefullyprepared and properly-balanced system of State medicine, but it is emphatically opposed to the regimentation of a learned profession for mere regi- ‘ mentation’s sake.

“The opinion expressed in Aberdeen, both in public and private utterances, was that universal contract

practice of medicine must lead to deterioration in the quality of work. And beyond all materialistic considerations, there remains the personal and intimate relationship between doctor and patient, which is of great importance in the treatment of the sick-. It is that intangible thing called ■faith,’ faith, rightly or wrongly, in the man of your choice, and although most proposed contract, services ostensibly contain some measure of choice as between doctor and patient, in practice this tends to dimi inisli with the duration of any system i of State medical service.’’ | Dr. Dawson said that this reprej seated the fairly considered opinion of loaders of the British medical profesI sion. who by training and experience, | must know more than any layman the intricacies of medical work, more of the imponderable influences that controlled men whose work brought them I into close and frequent touch with tragedy and death and in the work of; whom remained some spirit of devo- i tion and selflessness. j “No medical man can deny,” he said, “that material considerations of ways and means must intrude into thoughts and discussions, but above these the profession is concerned with the maintenance of the quality and ’standard of its work, which it properly believes will be seriously dam-I iged by any system of contract prac- ' tice which diminishes or eliminates ■ the element of competition whereby the best and most devoted service re-E

ceives the greatest reward. In America, where the question of a State medical service is a burning one, the most responsible leaders of the pro- ■ J'ession echo these opinions.’’ i i From the New York headquarters of an international organisation for ex- ■ port and import, trade and finance, a i Dunedin indentor has received the folj lowing expression, of its war sentiiments: “The war which Germany has | once again forced on the world for the : destruction of civilisation impels us, |an old-time friend of the numerous ; merchants and traders throughout the British Empire, to let them know at I least where our individual sentiments i lie, namely, with Britain and the. . Empire as in the last Great War. That I another such horror should be in- ! dieted on mankind by the will of one I paranoic after all the vain pleadings, I efforts, and humiliations suffered by ; Great Britain and France, it is difiij cult and now useless to speak of with I restraint. Suffice it to say that our 'entire sympathies are with you in the, troubles, worries, sorrows, and losses you may be compelled to suffer in doing your part towards helping your Empire to crush Hitlerism from the face of the earth.’’