Doctor’s Views

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 82, 7 April 1938, Page 4

Doctor’s Views

HEALTH SCHEME PREVIOUS EXPERIENCES NOT ALTOGETHER ENCOURAGING ANOTHER INQUIRY WANTED HAMILTON, April 4. What he thought would probably constitute the views of the majority of members of the medical profession regarding the new free and universal health service proposed by the Government were expressed by a Hamilton practitioner. Although the profession recognised the scheme to be beneficial it considered that the people of New Zealand had in the past been well looked after by the general practitioners and the nurs-ing-homes. Schemes for the provision of free services had not proved the success that was anticipated and in the latest proposals the Government had failed to consider the future of certain sections of tho community and of the medical profession. It was deemed essential that before the plau was brought into force that the parties concerned should meet in order to discuss any matters which had so far been overlooked. Not Denied Attention. “The provision of medical benefits for the people is a necessity and establishment of a free and universal health service is an excellent scheme when the public cannot afford to pay for such necessities,” said the speaker. “I imagine that a big proportion of the New Zealand public as recipients under the scheme will refuse to use it. 1 cannot imagine that in the past the poor of the Dominion has been denied medical attention when necessary. For example, about £20,000 was spent in providing facilities for the Huntly residents. The whole scheme proved to be a white elephant. The Campbell-Johnstone ward at the Waikato Hospital was built for expectant mothers who were supposed not to be able to afford maternity benefits. But the medical profession in outside practice continues to attend free of charge, where it is necessary, cases of hardship or of poverty and the district nursing homes give the same attention to the non-paying patients as they do to the paying inmates.” Hope w r as expressed by the doctor that under the Government scheme of free medical benefits, superannuation and increased pensions that the sum of one shilling in the pound would be found sufficient for remuneration to the medical profession. “At this stage,” stated the doctor, ‘*l wonder what is going to happen to the unemployed, who presumably up to the present, have needed the 8d in the pound and the £1 a year. Are they to be thrown overboard or are they to be absorbed by an extension of productive and non-productive public works, financed on borrowed money I” Making People Disease-minded?

“Has the Government considered that the public hospital accommodation in New Zealand will have to be doubled or perhaps trebled! Is it merely concerned with making New Zealanders disease-minded instead of putting its governmental energies into the building of a sturdier race by, means of eugenic principles and by the cultivation of the body and increased culture of the mind from youth upwards f ’ ’

“Has the Government made provi* sion for the services of the specialist, who plays a greater part in medical services than the man in the street might expect!” tbe speaker asked. He pointed out that the medical profession in New Zealand had promised the Government its lull co-operation ia principle but it still thought that further consultation between the two parties was necessary before the scheme was finalised.