Health Minister Thinks Doctors Will Co-operate

Northern Advocate, 10 December 1940, Page 6

Health Minister Thinks Doctors Will Co-operate

[Special to “Northern Advocate ”] AUCKLAND, This Day.

“I think that in the end common tense will prevail, and that the doctors will be parties to the Government scheme,” said the Minister for Health (Mr Armstrong), this afternoon, when discussing the attitude of the medical profession to the medical benefits provided under the amendment to the Social Security Act which was passed by Parliament last week. Mr Armstrong said he felt sure that the doctors would show the same cooperation as every other section of the community. Regulations had already been prepared and were now in the hands of the law draughtsmen for overhaul. Introduction Soon. “They will be ready for operation at any time, and the scheme will soon be put into practice,” he said.. While not being in a position to mention a date, Mr Armstrong said that it would be early in the New Year, and it was proposed, also, at an early date to make Gujt-patients’ services at the hospitals free. There was a good deal of preliminary work to be done, including the appointment of additional staff, and office accommodation. Means Test The medical profession had itself proposed a scheme which, in effect, would be 60 or 70 per cent, socialisation, and, in addition to which, it aimed at dividing the community into two classes, one of them beng paupers, Mr Armstrong added. He referred to the various hospitals throughout New Zealand and the permanent staffs which they employed. They were giving fine sendee, and :o were other departments of the :3tafe, as, for instance, the Education Department and the Post and Telegraph Department. Mr Armstrong said there could be ro principle at stake when it was remembered that when the maternity benefits were finally agreed to practically 100 per cent, of the medical men who were qualified for that work came under the scheme. What difference in principle was Involved with a scheme of medical benefits as compared with maternity benefits? he asked.

Mr Armstrong said that from authoritative sources it had been learned that the operation of the Government’s scheme in Britain had definitely raised the standard of the profession.

He considered that, in the aggregate, medical men coming under the scheme would get considerably more out of it than they got from their private practices. There would always be some, such as skilled specialists, who would be better off under private practice and they would not be interfered with.