MEDICAL BENEFITS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27358, 6 April 1950, Page 7

MEDICAL BENEFITS

Disciplinary Committees DUNEDIN APPOINTMENTS All divisions of the New Zealand branch of the British Medical Association have set up the disciplinary committees which will assist the Health Department to administer health benefits. The Minister of Health, Mr Watts, announced last week that disciplinary committees woud be set up immediately under the Medical Practitioners Act as part of the action taken to end shortcomings and abuses in the operation of medical and pharmaceutical health benefits. The appointment of six doctors from the Dunedin area to act as the local Disciplinary Committee for the Otago division has been ratified by the council of the BMA at Wellington. This committee will act as a fact-finding committee in the investigation of complaints about the administration of the medical benefits, and will be responsible to the Central Advisory Committee at Wellington, which is investigatory and also punitive (in direct consultation with the Minister). The Central Advisory Committee of the BMA is widely representative of the Dominion, although it has no Dunedin doctors among its members at present. The membership of this committee, and of the local committees, is. however, not permanent, and it is expected that different doctors will accept the responsibility of membei'ship each year. The names of the doctors on the various committees will be published in the Gazette in the near future. The procedure to be followed by the committees has not yet been fully decided.