COSTLY TREND

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26607, 1 November 1947, Page 6

COSTLY TREND

“TOO MUCH MEDICINE” INCREASE IN PHARMACEUTICAL BENEFITS ABUSES OF SYSTEM ALLEGED Parliamentary Reporter WELLINGTON, Oct. 31. New Zealand was suffering from too much medicine, said Mr E. P. Aderman (Oppn., New Plymouth) during consideration of the Health Department vote in the House of Representatives to-day. He drew attention io the sum of £1,451,000 which was included in the current security estimates for pharmaceutical benefits and said that this was 16s 6d per head of the population. That, added Mr Aderman, did not take into account expenditure on patent medicines not available under social security. The expenditure the previous year was £1,439,686, and in the year before that £1,336,000. Attention had been drawn to the fact that expenditure on medicine was almost as great as on medical services. The Minister of Health, Miss Howard, said the matter was giving some concern, but it was one of the questions which the Medical Services Committee, now sitting, would investigate. Mr S. W. Smith (Oppn., Hobson) said that many doctors -felt that if free medicine* disappeared much of the strain on their services would also go. One he knew felt that the doctors were just a channel through which free medicine was secured. Parents took children to doctors to get free medicine. It cost the State 7s 6d for a doctor, and a child would have been as well off with a bottle of some good patent cough mixture from a chemist or store. If the abuse of medicine was checked it might prevent other abuses, he felt. The same standard of medical treatment as formerly was not being obtained, and that relatively high standard which it had been possible to preserve was due to the older doctors remaining in practice. He did not know what would happen when they went. A lot pf young doctors were able to make much more money in practice than in staying as house surgeons in hospitals to get the necessary experience for a general practice. The Prime Minister. Mr Fraser, said he could not agree that the medical service had deteriorated. He thought it had improved. He knew there were difficulties and temptations regarding the taking of medicine. Against this was the fact that people who could not previously afford medicine now got it free. The growing pains of social security were not underestimated. Things had happened which should not. It was to the credit of the B.M.A. that it was anxious to limit practices which were not creditable, and it was giving the Minister every co-operation at the present, and this was appreciated. He thought there was a very high standard among the young doctors who had served with the forces. Mr G. H. Mackley (Oppn., Wairarapa): There is a feeling that some minor complaints were treated more superficially than before, because doctors have not the necessary time. Mr Fraser replied that there was the problem of training more doctors. He thought that eventually another medical school would have to be established—at Auckland —but that the time had not yet arrived.