DOCTORS’ FIGHT FOR FREEDOM

Southland Times, Issue 24547, 23 September 1941, Page 6

DOCTORS’ FIGHT FOR FREEDOM

SURGEON SPEAKS OUT GOVERNMENT SCHEME ATTACKED “I belong to no political party, would dislike to engage in party politics, and have personal friends in every party,” said Sir James Elliott, at the great mass meeting held in Wellington to protest against the Social Security Amendment Bill. “But a crisis has arisen, and I think now that all men who love freedom and justice should take the buttons off the foils and fight for the right, as God gives them to see the right, whatever the consequences.” Sir James Elliott said that Mr Nash had stated in the debate on the Medical Bill “that people don’t get medical service because they cannot pay for it.” This was incorrect. It was free at hospital or at doctors’ consulting rooms. People did not pay if they did not want to pay, and he had never seen a single patient in New Zealand in 38 years’ experience who needed to be without medical attention because he could not pay. THE FINANCIAL ASPECT It had been stated that “doctors do not object to taking money from the State at hospitals and for military and other examinations, but object to taking the money of the proposed medical service.” This was a misrepresentation of the facts. Doctors objected to universal application of the scheme, bureaucratic control and prohibition of private practice. It was represented that the whole question of their refusal turned on the financial aspect, but the question of their independence, obviously the main factor, was not mentioned. Mr Nash had quoted Sir Henry Brackenbury as approving a State medical service. So did the doctors, if it was voluntary, but Mr Nash forgot to state that Sir Henry opposed nationalization of the profession. Mr Nash had actually stated that he knew there were hundreds of doctors in New Zealand willing and eager to work under the system abolishing private practice. The answer to this statement was that it was a terminological inexactitude; the audience might know of a shorter word. QUESTIONS FOR MINISTER The Minister of Health, Mr Nordmeyer, had said in the debate that one of the first things that would be recognized was that the State must be tremendously concerned about the health and physical well-being of its people. Why if he was “tremendously concerned” did he bring in a measure to treat effects and not the causes, a Bill that did not even touch insurance against disease? asked Sir James Elliott. Had he not enough to do in his department to promote the supply of cheaper fruit and fish and vegetables and take other steps towards proper dieting. Why did he not enforce the Health Act where Maoris -were concerned instead of permitting a death rate from tuberculosis ten times greater than in the European population, and a standing menace to the health of Europeans as well? Why did people have to live unhealthy lives in rooms and tenements? It was not the doctors’ doing. How far were Ministers of Health responsible for rejection on physical grounds of 38 per cent, of the young men of this country who were required for the fighting services? Would not health teaching and health .training be better value than facilities for drinking medicine? THE B.M.A. SCHEME The British Medical Association had put forward a true national health insurance service subject to modification or improvement which was capable of being operated, and they were prepared to operate it. It was far more liberal than the British system, and comprised preventive medicine and specialist services. But the Government would have none of this, because they did not want a sound health insurance scheme as much as they longed for State control and abolition of private enterprise. “By their acts I convict them of preferring coercion to freedom and coercion or freedom is the greatest question at issue this day for the people of New Zealand to decide,” said Sir James. They had had fair words about freedom,

but they must judge public men by their acts. Mr Nash had said on the hospital ship Oranje that “all would work to see that the liberties the men overseas were fighting to preserve would be stronger than ever when they came back.” Then why deprive 250 doctors, if they returned from active service, of their former right to freedom of practice in New Zealand, and why unjustly decline to ask them ; f they approved of the proposed drastic change? The members of the Cabinet who rushed to arms in the last war to defend with fervent devotion the ideals of freedom and justice must realize the desire of the officers of the N.Z.M.C. to return to their jobs as they left them.

“STATE INTERFERENCE UNWARRANTED” DOCTORS ABLE TO MEET SITUATION (P.A.) NEW PLYMOUTH, Sept. 22. “Man is older than the State and occupational groups such as the doctors are also older than the State, and the State has no more right to suppress those groups than it has to suppress itself,” said Dr H. F. Trehey in an address to the New Plymoutii Rotary Club today. Dr Trehey is Director of Catholic Action for the Archdiocese of Wellington. Dr Trehey said that if occupational groups were functioning properly and efficiently all was well with the State, and interference from the State was justified only when the activities of an occupational group began to encroach on the general welfare of the nation. The medical profession had offered sufficient evidence of its ability and willingness to meet the situation and therefore interference by the State was unwarranted. “The real function of a Government is that of watching, directing, stimulating and, if circumstances make necessary, restraining,” Di - Trehey declared. “Governing in itself is a full-time job and I feel that they do not possess the right to interfere with an occupational group such as the doctors, who are better fitted to express opinions on health matters than are politicans.” Interference with occupational groups could only result in State socialism of a totalitarian type, and it was against this that the Empire was fighting its present war. “Catholic social philosphy contends that though the State must have power to correct abuses in occupational groups, its real function is to co-ordinate them for the common good,” concluded Dr Trehey. RAILWAYMEN SUPPORT BILL (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Sept. 22. The following resolution was passed at a well-attended meeting of the Wellington branch of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants of New Zealand: “That this meeting of the Wellington branch of the A.S.R.S. strongly urges the Government to proceed with the Bill to bring about a general medical practitioner service by the date mentioned in the Bill, October 1, 1941. Further, this branch, representing more than 1000 members, pledges itself to support the Government in whatever steps it may be compelled to take to bring this about.” FUTURE ACTION IN AUSTRALIA PREDICTION BY SYDNEY SPECIALIST (Rec. 11.50 p.m.) SYDNEY, Sept. 22. “The nationalization of medical services, as being carried out in New Zealand, must come about in Australia,” says a Sydney specialist, writing in The Medical Journal of Australia. “The medical profession should begin to prepare itself immediately for the inevitable. Let us begin a survey at once to lay a foundation on which to build our new structure of national medicine, in which we can and will' play an active part. We must be openminded about the difficulties and resolve to meet them honestly. It must always be our endeavour to see that our plans do not bear the stamp of political expediency.” The writer urges “a clinical study” of the present order and the medical , profession should not hesitate to call into consultation bodies such as trade unions, political parties or other selected associations.