STORMY INTERLUDES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26693, 12 February 1948, Page 7

STORMY INTERLUDES

NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE DEBATE MINISTER CRITICISES B.M.A. N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent LONDON, 1 Feb. 10. The House of Commons debate on the new National Health Service was frequently stormy, and was concluded only by the application of the closure. The Minister of Health, Mr Aneurin Bevan, who was in good debating form, alleged that no Minister of Health in recent years had been acceptable to the B.M.A. Mr Ernest Brown, Liberal, who held that office in 1941-43, had been found anathema by the association, and Mr H. U. Willink, Conservative, who was Minister in 1943-45, had been found intolerable, and he himself impossible. “It reminds me,” said Mr Bevan, “ of the famous story about the argument between Mr Hilaire Belloc and Mr G, K. Chesterton about the origin of drunkenness. In order to conclude the argument, Belloc and Chesterton decided to apply the principles of 'logic. They went out on the first night and drank nothing but whisky and water and got drunk; the following night they drank nothing but brandy and water, and became drunk again. On the thU'd night they drank gin and water and once again became drunk. They decided that the constant factor was water, and that was obviously responsible for it.” Previous Failures Mr Bevan reminded the House that negotiations between Mr Brown and Mr Willink and the B.M.A. had failed before he ever took up discussion. The B.M.A. alleged that he had not negotiated sufficiently with it, but he had met its committee eight times and representatives of his department had met it 28 times since Aukust. 1945. Mr Bevan alleged that the B.M.A. Negotiating Committee had never been in a position to negotiate, because it had received instructions not to reach an agreement. He accused the B.M.A. of rejecting the Act before it even knew its terms. The motion approving the introduction of the Act was carried bv 337 votes to 178, after the defeat of the Conservative amendment seeking to delete the passage expressing satisfaction with the conditions offered the doctors. Reaction by B.M.A. In a statement issued after the debate, the committee of the B.M.A. said there was nothing new in Mr Bevan’s speech. All the major statements relating to the new Act had been published in the medical press, and copies of Mr Bevan’s replies to the association’s Negotiating Committee had been distributed to every doctor in the country. “Where spokesmen for the B.M.A. have criticised Mr Bevan’s scheme.” says the statement, “ they have only been following what has been laid down by our own democratic machinery as a policy of the profession.” Dr Guy H. Dain, chairman of the B.M.A. Negotiating Committee, said the Minister’s allegations that the position .had been misrepresented by a small body of the. association were quite untrue. The small body of spokesmen to whom Mr Bevan referred had been reflecting decisions reached at many representative meetings. He also denied that members of the profession were under any misapprehension about the Act. They had had long times to study it, and were fully aware of its implications. The Times, commenting in an editorial upon the debate, says: “Much of what Mr Bevan had to say was reasonable, and deserves the attention of the doctors. But the manner tended to mar the _ matter, and some of his less responsible supporters were even more attracted by the facile belief that Parliament was being challenged by a sinister conspiracy of reactionary doctors.

“ But, although it fell to the Socialist Minister to carry it through, the National Health Service Act is still fundamentally an all-party measure. As such it is presented by all responsible speakers in the debate, and this should give the B.M.A. pause for second thoughts -about its attempt to present the Act as the first step towards Socialist totalitarianism.”