First Step In Nationalising Australian Medical Service

Northern Advocate, 18 November 1941, Page 6

First Step In Nationalising Australian Medical Service

(Rec. 2 p.m.) SYDNEY, This Day. The establishment of mobile X-ray units to examine school-children is being considered by the Federal Minister for Health (Mr. E. J. Holloway). He said that a larger scheme of X-ray examination to include adults would be introduced eventually and this would be part of a comprehensive plan for nationalisation of the medical services. The question of a national medical service is discussed in the current issue of the Medical Journal of Australia. Dr. R, D. Davey says: “To get a fore-taste of medical socialism, one has only to become a cog in the Govern-ment-run machine called the army, and to watch the high degree of medical service dispensed on sick parades in our militia camps. Army Example As in the proposed State-run service, every man in the army has the right to demand medical attention for every conceivable ailment, large or small, real or imaginary, honest or tendentious and —this is an essential point—at no immediate cost to himself.” Dr. Davey urges' that the example of the New Zealand doctors in resisting a national medical service should be followed and that “it is the duty of us at home to see that those of our members who are fighting abroad for the democratic way of life do not come home to find that a system of medical Fascism has been foisted upon them in their absence."