DEFINITE REFUSAL

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20493, 1 March 1941, Page 9

DEFINITE REFUSAL

ATTITUDE UNCHANGED ASSOCIATION DOCTORS (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, this day. “There is no change whatever in the attitude of the British Medical Association,” said Dr. Jamieson, of Nelson, the chairman of the national health insurance committee of the New Zealand branch of . the British Medical Association, when asked today if he had any statement to make in view of the Government’s expressed intention to make the medical benefits of the social security scheme available as from to-morrow. He said that the Government had made no further overtures to the British Medical Association in regard to the general practitioner scheme. Asked if he had any idea as to the number of doctors who would agree to come under the scheme, he said: “I do not know of one that will. We as an association are not going to have anything to do with it.” He added that while he had no knowledge of individual doctors having been approached directly to cooperate in the scheme, the Government had sent out a copy of the amended regulations and specimen of the contract card to every medical practitioner in the Dominion. He did not know of a single case of a doctor having agreed to come into the scheme.

Dr. Jamieson mentioned that the British Medical Association meeting of March 12 was a quarterly meeting and had no special relation to the general practitioner scheme.