HEALTH SCHEME

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24699, 30 August 1941, Page 16

HEALTH SCHEME

NEED IN AUSTRALIA SIR R. CILENTQ'S VIEWS ' SYDNEY, July 31. Immediate introduction in Australia of a national health scheme was advocated by Sir Raphael Cilento, Directorgeneral of Health in Queensland, in evidence before the Federal Parliamentary Select Committee, investigating social security. He is also, professor of social medicine and tropical medicine in the University of Queensland. If medical service to the Australian people were; regarded as the care of the whole man, he said, it would take in every aspect of his welfare from before he was born until he died. In that sense, social and medical services were the same thing. Medical care consisted of preventive and Curative medicine, and the control of relationships between the profession, the public, ard the Government. In Australia, all these aspects needed considerable development and a marked degree of better co-ordination. We would not get the best preventive medicine, he continued, unless the populated area of Australia was divided into health districts. Sir Raphael Cilento advocated nation-wide adoption of the Queensland system, under which local authorities and hospital boards have distinct responsibilities, and all their budgets are scrutinised by the Government. Steps were being taken in Queensland to bring all private hospitals under State control, and no medical man could call himself a specialist unles he had done five years in the branch in which he was specialising. This was the only scheme that could effectively meejt the health needs of the community. He urged that the great hospitals should largely concern themselves with specialities, deal • with serious' cases, casualties, and all requiring specialist treatment, such as eye, ear, nose, and throat cases. Other cases, the great bulk of the work, should go to suburban regional clinics. In his opinion, a medical man could not continue to give exceedingly good work after 60 years of age. He thought a national health scheme should be introduced now, and not be left until after the war. Of 710 medical men in Queensland, 69 per cent, had stated that they were prepared to work unconditionally under a State service