HEALTH PROPOSALS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23077, 30 June 1938, Page 12

HEALTH PROPOSALS

In tone, the Prime Minister's reply to the expression of regret, by the New Zealand branch of the British Medical Association, that it had not been supplied with particulars of the Government's proposals for embodiment in the Social Security Bill, is disappointing. In substance it fails to meet the position as the president ,of the branch association has courteously put it. More than once informed by the Minister of Health that the co-operation of the medical profession was necessary, and that the Government could not introduce any scheme that had not the support of a substantial proportion of the profession, ' the association has naturally assumed that its promised help would be sought before the bill was presented to Parliament. Instead of this being done, the association is not merely denied opportunity for tendering requisite advice but also cudgelled for voicing its expectation that the opportunity would be given in terms of the Minister's assurance. In attempted justification of his present attitude, Mr. Savage says that the proposals have not yet come before Cabinet, even in a draft form. That is passing strange, and but for his word would have been utterly incredible. So important a measure, long promised and intended to be a chief item of the business of this session, could surely have been sufficiently advanced in form by this time to become the basis of reciprocal consultation. If the association had expressed opposition to any such scheme as is vaguely shaped as yet, the Prime Minister might conceivably have had reason to refuse to take it into the requested confidence. That is not so. The nature of his reply suggests that the project is still immature, and therefore in need of investigation by those especially competent to advise on important aspects of it.