MEDICAL PRACTICE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26176, 12 June 1946, Page 4

MEDICAL PRACTICE

QUALITY OF SERVICE IMPROVEMENTS DESIRED GOVERNMENT AND B.M.A. CO-OPERATE (P.A.) WELLINGTON, June 11, The New Zealand branch of the British Medical Association is to join with the Government in the formation of a committee which will have as its objective the examination of the present systems of medical practice with a view to their improvement and simplification. The committee will extend its examination to other systems, and will report on their suitability. A decision to that effect was made unanimously at the quarterly meeting of the Council of the B.M.A. in Wellington last week, said the chairman, Mr E. H. M. Luke, to-day. “ The intention to set up such a committee was mentioned by the Minister of Health, Mr A. H. Nordmeyer, in a press statement, and I am very happy to be able to say that a considerable measure of agreement has been reached with the Minister as to the means to be adopted to make a further examination of the medical services' in New Zealand," Mr Luke said. The meeting, he added, marked a milestone in the history of the association, in that the Medical Planning Committee had presented a report covering a three years’ study of health problems. The council had adopted 16 recommendations of an important report covering systems of piactice, the hospital system. specialist services, preventive medicine, social medicine, medical education, and industrial medicine.

Interests of Community * “The report established several basic principles which are of public interest,” Mr Luke continued. “It has been laid down as the policy of the British Medical Association in New Zealand that it is recognised and warmly advocated that the medical service must be of the highest possible quality and that all who are ill should have the best attention regardless of whether they have the means to pay or not.

“The association is emphatic in its endorsement of the principle of its parent body in England that the primary object of the medical profession is the maintenance and improvement of the quality of the medical service in the best interests of the community as a whole. As a result of the experience which the medical profession has accumulated over many years, it is felt strongly that this quality of service is best maintained by the system of private practice, where the practitioner stands or falls by the standard of conduct of his practice in the closest possible relationship with his patient and without the intervention of any third party. In order to ensure that private practice is retained to the proper degree in relation to the public services, it is felt that private practitioners should never be excluded from open competition with any form of Statepaid general practitioner service. “The association is convinced that, while private practice continues, its superiority will always be apparent. The present social security system is capable of simplification and improvement, but the method by which the patient obtains a refund of part of the sum he disburses to the doctor will always be preferable. It supports a continuance of private practice and all that this means in the quality of service given to‘the patient.” The council, Mr Luke said, gave a considerable proportion of its time to a discussion of the clinic or group schemes which had been mooted for the North Auckland and Hutt Valley areas. “ Full information of what is intended,” he said, “is not yet to hand, but while it is felt that there is a future for the clinic system for Plunket care, massage, preventive medicine, child welfare, pre-school attention, dentistry, and work of a similar nature, it is considered that the aggregation of general practitioners into clinics would not be in the best interests of the patient. Doctor and Patient Relation

“ The patient will best be served by an adequate number of general practitioners, properly distributed throughout the area, working from consulting rooms in their own residence. Practitioners working in this manner will voluntarily form groups. This will overcome the problem of over-long hours of work and night and weekend calls. The proper distribution of doctors would mean much shorter journeys for patients,' especially in areas where tram and bus services are still in a semi-developed state. This dictum is restricted to general practitioners and does not refer to the grouping of doctors who have specialised in some branch of medicine.” Mr Luke said he, with most of his colleagues, was convinced that the public of New Zealand desired to have the right to choose their own medical adviser and to change him at will. This implied a system of private practice and close personal relationship between the doctor and patient which was negatived by th e systems employing private or State clinics with salaried doctors. The individual desired to be the patient of his own doctor, who would have an intimate knowledge of his case. State medicine could not maintain this important personal relationship.