FRIENDLY SOCIETIES.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 144851, 1 December 1915, Page 7

FRIENDLY SOCIETIES.

AND MEDICAL MEN. A WELLINGTON DIFFICULTY. PEE PRESS ASSOCIATION. WELLINGTON, Nov. 30. A peculiar position, which unless a compromise is arrived at between tho parties concerned, and which will probably result in what are known as ‘‘lodge doctors” ceasing to exist in Wellington after the euu ot this year, has arisen between the friendly societies and those seventeen or eighteen members of tho medical protessiou who have been engaged in friendly society work. It appears that 'tho present rate of levy per member of Iricudly societies for medical expenses is 14s per year, and tho doctors some time ago demanded an increase to 24s a year. The societies contend that with between three and four thousand members tho present rate is sufficient, and that doctors are amply repaid for tboir services. Further, they take up the attitude that nothing has arisen to justify the increase demanded and so they declined to pay it. ‘ The result is a deadlock and from to-morrow some of tho lodges will .be without doctors, while others will not have doctors after the end of December.

The medical view of it seems to be that the present rate was formulated some twenty years ago, when things were ■on a very different basis from what they are to-day. It is pointed out that the cost of transit has increased and that it is unfair- to expect a medical man to attend a man, who is a friendly society member, his wife, aged dependents and children under sixteen years of age for 14s a year—an amount loss than the average working family spends on picture shows and other amusements.