The Northern Advocate Daily “NORTHLAND FIRST” SATURDAY, JULY 23, 1938. Socialisation of Medicine

Northern Advocate, 23 July 1938, Page 4

The Northern Advocate Daily “NORTHLAND FIRST”

SATURDAY, JULY 23, 1938. Socialisation of Medicine

Registered for transmission through the post as a Newspaper

1S T its comment on the social security scheme of provision for free medical treatment for all, the Nordmcyer Committee gives no hint of the basis on which it is proposed that such treatment shall be provided. Doctors are still completely in the dark as to the system under which they are to he made to work, and their prospective patients are equally unenlightened. The ease for universal free medical treatment is defended by comparing it to free education. On that basis it is possible to -justify the socialisation of any profession or public service. If we have free medicine, why not free law? On April 1 next, when the new system of medical treatment comes into vogue (assuming that the Government is still in office then), New Zealand will have taken a long step on the road to socialism, for a great profession will have been socialised, and from that point it will be very easy to bring other professions and occupations under the same system. “Few people,” says the committee, “can claim with certainty that they will always be able to pay for their own medical services.” The argument is puerile. Equally few people can claim with certainty that they will always be able to pay for their bread, meat, milk and eggs, things which are even more necessary in everyday life than a good doctor. Extending this argument, it may be inferred that the socialisation of other callings than medicine is not very far away. Actually, the position is that the people who cannot pay for their medical attention never have to, any more than they have to pay for their hospital attention. Few doctors ever sue to recover accounts, but hundreds of them give their time and skill free to patients in public hospitals. They do so partly because such service is inherent in the of their profession, and partly to develop their medical skill and knowledge. Whether the same professional keenness will be present under the new scheme is perhaps open to a certain measure of doubt, but the Nordmeyer Committee is cheerfully confident that the standard of medical service will in no way decline.