STATE CONTROL NOT WANTED

Southland Times, Issue 23954, 21 October 1939, Page 6

STATE CONTROL NOT WANTED

OPINIONS OF DOCTORS ABROAD DETERIORATION IN WORK FORESEEN (Special to The Times) DUNEDIN, October 20. Dr J. B. Dawson, professor of midwifery and gynaecology in the University of Otago, returned to Dunedin this week from a visit overseas. In the course of an interview, he summarized the opinions held abroad on the subject of socialization of the practice of medicine. Dr Dawson attended the annual ’ meeting of the British Medical Association at Aberdeen.

“Of interest to New Zealand,” he said, “may be the attitude of the medical profession as a whole to the socialization of medical services. The profession is alive to the demand and acknowledges the necessity, on grounds both humanitarian and national, of conserving the health of a dwindling population and is therefore anxious to co-operate in any carefully prepared and properly balanced system of State medicine; but it is emphatically opposed to regimentation of a learned profession for mere regimentation’s sake.

“The opinion expressed in Aberdeen, both in public and private utterances, w; that a national contract practice of medicine must lead to deterioration in the quality of work,” he continued. “And, beyond all materialistic considerations there remains the personal and intimate relationship between doctor and patient, which is of great importance in the treatment of the sick. It is that intangible thing called ‘faith’—faith rightly or wrongly in the man of your choice—and although most of thf proposed contract services ostensibly contain some measure of choice as between doctor and patient, in practice this tends to diminish with the duration of any system of State medical service.

“This represents the fairly considered opinion of the leaders of the British medical profession, who, by training and experience, must know more than any layman of the intricacies of medical work” said Dr Dawson. “No medical man can deny that material considerations of ways and means must intrude into thoughts and discussions, but, above these, the profession is concerned with the maintenance of .the quality and standard of its work, which it properly believes will be seriously damaged by any system of contract practice, which diminishes or eliminates the element of competition whereby the best and most devoted service receives the greatest reward. In America, where the question of State medical service is a burning one, the most responsible leaders of the profession echo these opinions.”