RELIEF WORKERS’ PLAINT

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 20 February 1935, Page 4

RELIEF WORKERS’ PLAINT

Allegations That Doctors Had Refused to Attend Cases

TREATMENT OF INDIGENT SICK OFFERS TO HOSPITAL BOARD {By Telegraph— Treat Association.) AUCKLAND, To-day. Consideration was given by the Auckland Hospital Board yesterday to the recent complaint by the Unemployed Workers’ Association that doctors had refused to attend indigent relief workers unless payment was forthcoming. The Auckland Division of the Brutish Medical Association, in a letter to the board, said it had informed the unemployed' association that the treatment of indigent sick was a matter for the hospital board. The British Medical Association was more than willing to co-operate with the association in any scheme for the organised relief of sickness among unemployed. The chairman, Mr. Wallace, said the man around whom the complaint centred had visited the board’s dispensary on the day before the alleged incidents and, though the medical officer had advised him to enter hospital, he had refused.

“If a doctor goes out at night to indigent cases,” added Mr. Wallace, “the board will gladly nay his fee.” He had interviewed several doctors, who had said that they were quite willing to attend such cases if the board would provide medicine. He said, “All honour to them.”

It wa s mentioned that arrangements were being made to supply medicine where required, and that the board had spent a considerable sum in sending doctors and ambulances to relief camps.