MEDICAL SERVICE

Greymouth Evening Star, 22 March 1945, Page 6

MEDICAL SERVICE

AUSTRALIAN OPINIONS. (Rec. 1.0) SYDNEY, March 22. “New Zealand doctors now appear to be a gang of go-getters,” said Dr. E. Dark of Katoomba. when addressing a meeting of medical students, and advocating a national salaried medical service. Dr. Dark, commenting on Mr. p. L. Thompson’s article in the “Sydney Telegraph,” said the fetj for service scheme operating in New Zealand has been disastrous for doctors’ morals. Doctors call four or five times daily on patients, who are practically well, collecting 7/0 from the Government for each call. He said the present system of out-patient treatment was shockingly primitive. Basic wage earners have to wait in dingv hospital waiting-room, three to four hours for treatment, he said. The death rate in the lower income group is higher than in any other class.. This was due to insufficient nutrition and lack of medical attention. “The general practice system militates against effective preventive medicine,‘because it gives doctors a vested interest in disease. The more disease there is and the longer it continues, the greater is a doctor s earnings. Many doctors succumb to the temptation to prolong treatment ol well-to-do patients unnecessarily, and even to treat non-existent diseases," Dr. Dark said. “The salaried service was the only form of medical service which had proved effective. The secretary of the British Medical Association, Dr. J. G. Hunter, said the B.M.A. in Australia would oppose the introduction of a free medical service similar to that of New Zealand. “The B.M.A. is anxious to improve health standards, but does not believe that free attention and a free bottle of medicine is 'the solution. Housing, nutrition, and education are factors of at least equal importance. Both Australia and New Zealand are far behind other countries in research and preventive medicine.”