STATE HEALTH SERVICE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19549, 3 February 1938, Page 3

STATE HEALTH SERVICE

INEVITABLE TREND ENGLISH SURGEON'S VIEW CARING FOR THE POOR (Per Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, last night. "State medical services must come," said Mr. E. C. Lindsay, CJ3.E., M. 8., 8.C., F.R.C.S., a noted London surgeon, formerly of Christchurch, in an interview. Mr. Lindsay, who arrived in the city to-day for a short visit, was born in Christchurch and graduated first at Otago University. He is now senior surgeon at the London General Hospital, consulting surgeon to the Poplar Hospital, and an examiner in surgery at the Cambridge University.

Commenting on the proposed national health insurance sjcheme in New Zealand, Mr. Lindsay said that such schemes would in time become natural developments in different cdviljseti countries throughout is:te world. (He described briefly the gradual trend in Great Britain, particularly in London, to the permanent establishment of medical and health schemes under the control of the Government. These schemes were necessary to enable the poorer classes to obtain competent medical attention, he said. Under the system of private practice, this had been impossible, because these classes were unable to pay the fees which were demanded. Another trouble that, in many cases, arose from this system was that it meant that many private practitioners were acquiring patients for income rather than with the idea of rendering assistance to sufferers, as it was very seldom that a private practitioner attended to minor ailments, as he sent these cases to the hospitals to be dealt with there. In London, continued Mr. Lindsay, the London County Council was, by the gradual development of a general scheme, opening hospitals and providing competent surgeons and physicians, disclosing a field in medicine which was unknown 25 years ago. Thjs, he considered, was the first stage in the establishment of a medical service which would, in time, embrace the whole nation. Steps were also being taken in other large cities in Great Britain to provide similar facilities.

Another scheme which was assisting the slow but sure development of a State medical service was the formation of the Hospitn} Saving Association. This establishment ma-lc if possible, by means of regular payments to the association, for persons of the poorer classes to pay hospital expenses and doctors' fees. When they were suffering from any ailment, members or the association made periodical payment? and when it was necessary for them to receive attention they were admitted to a hospital and attended to by a doctor, the fees and expenses being paid by the association.

This saving scheme was being patronised not only by the poorer classes, but also by men who were earn ng salaries of, say, £BOO yearly. The income of the association had risen

rapidly, said Mr. Lindsay, and was now nearly £1,000,000 annually. Prominent medical men in Great Britain had been alive for some years to the possibilities and the inevitable establishment of State services. One famous physician had stated some years ago that "the State medical service has got to come, and we have got to try and envisage it."

Mr. Lindsay said that the national scheme which it was proposed to establish in the Dominion was very similar to Die proposals which were being made in Great Britain. There was no doubt, he concluded, that this system, if properly administered, would have the desired effect of giving the poorer classes a vastly-im-proved medical service.