DOMINION DOCTORS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25801, 23 March 1945, Page 4

DOMINION DOCTORS

“A GANG OF GO-GETTERS ”

MEDICAL SCHEME CRITICISED SYDNEY, Mar. 22. “New Zealand doctors now appear to be a gang of go-getters,” said Doctor E. Dark, of Katoomba, when addressing a meeting of medical students and advocating a national salai'ied medical service. Dr Dark, commenting on Mr D. L. Thompson’s article in the Sydney Telegraph, said the fee for service scheme operating in New Zealand had been disastrous for doctors’ morals. Doctors called four or five times a day on patients who are practically well, collecting 7s Gd from the Government for each call.

Dr Dark said the present system of outpatient treatment at hospitals was shockingly primitive. Basic wage earners had to wait in dingy hospital waiting rooms three or four hours for treatment, he said. The death rate in the lower income group was higher than in any other class. This was due to Insufficient nutrition and lack of medical attention.

“The general practice system militates against effective preventive medicine, because it gives the doctors a vested interest in disease,” he said. “ The more disease there is and the longer it continues the greater are a doctor’s earnings. Many doctors succumb to temptation to prolong the treatment of well-to-do patients unnecessarily, and even to treat non existent diseases.”

Dr Dark said a salaried service was the only form of medical service which had proved effective. The secretary of the British Medical Association, Dr J. G. Hunter, said the B.M.A. in Australia would oppose the introduction of a free medical service similar to that of New Zealand.

"The B.M.A. is anxious to improve health standards, but does not believe 1 that free attention and a free bottle of medicine is the solution. Housing, nutrition, and education are factors of at least equal importance. Both Australia and New Zealand are far behind other countries in research and preventive medicine.”