SHORTAGE OF DOCTORS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 78, 23 June 1943, Page 4

SHORTAGE OF DOCTORS

PROBLEM IN NEW ZEALAND CONCERN ABOUT FUTURE EXPRESSED (From Our Parliamentary Reporter) Wellington, This Day. Concern about the future of medicine in New Zealand was expressed by Mr H. J. D. Acland (Nat., Temuka). in his Budget speech in the House of Representatives yesterday afternoon. “It is our duty to see that doctors fighting overseas return to the Dominion to find the medical profession revered and honoured,” he said. “We want to encourage some of our most brilliant medical men to come back. Before the war many doctors went overseas for post-graduate work and 300 did not return.” Too many doctors were being called out on errands which were not warranted. Doctors generally were very much overworked, partly due to the war and partly to social security. Some doctors encouraged patients to go to them so that they could collect 7s 6d, so that he w’ondered whether the panel system might not be better. There were sixty or more alien doctors in practice in New Zealand and it did not seem right that they should be making fortunes while New Zealand doctors were fighting overseas. The Minister of Education, Mr H. G. R. Mason, asked what was the use of complaining of alien doctors in New Zealand when the country was so very short of doctors.