DOCTORS OBJECT

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21092, 12 May 1943, Page 4

DOCTORS OBJECT

STATE SERVICE FIXED SALARY SCALE PROPOSAL IN BRITAIN (By Telegraph—Press Assp .--Copyright) (10.10 a m.) LONDON, May 11. The Ministry of Health made a confidential suggestion to influential doctors throughout the country that doctors after the war should become State employees on a fixed salary scale.

The doctors considered the suggestion in secret and rejected it. In reporting this, the Daily Express says' the doctors want a Royal commission to publicly examine the whole ques-' tion of public medicine. They feel the present secrecy in the discussions between the profession and the Ministry is undesirable. The Ministry suggested a system of health centres controlled by the local authorities in which the people .would choose their own doctor from thosp available. The suggested salary scale is £4OO for a centre assistant who had finished training, £630 after three years and an increase of a few pounds annually thereafter. The doctors say .the scheme is insufficiently comprehensive and would make them servants of .the local, authorities rather than friends and physicians of their patients. They also argue that the salaries reward grey hairs rather than" ability. The doctors want Sir William Beveridge’s report on social insurance endorsed before they are singled out for control. They are prepared to see the end of private practices and huge; fees for star surgeons, but want a system of groups of doctors under the control of their own profession and not under the control of the local authorities.