“PREPOSTEROUS”

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVIII, Issue 23323, 5 October 1945, Page 4

“PREPOSTEROUS”

Earnings Of Some Doctors (N.Z.P.A.) WELLINGTON, Oct. 4. The placing of the medical profession on a salary oasis operated oy national authorities was advocated in the Legislative Council to-day by the Hon. J. K. -Archer, who said the present earnings oi some doctors were simply preposterous. He also criticised what he described as unnecessary orders on chemists for pharmaceutical supplies. Mr Archer said the high earnings of private medical men were creating difficulties for hospital boards. Doctors who worked for Hospital Boards, either part time or whole time, were not meanly remunerated, but attention was being drawn by some doctors to the great difference between the earnings of doctors employed by Boards and those in private practice. The problem would be solved if there were a salaried profession and doctors outside the Hospital Boards could do their own work as medical men, but the financial side *of their life should be operated by national authorities. Mr Archer said he was astonished at the ease with which many doctors gave orders on chemists for pharmaceutical supplies. He believed that many doctors, perhaps to satisfy the sometimes needless demands of patients, wrote out orders on chemists to an unnecessary extent. To some extent miblic money was wasted, and he thought it might be better if all doctors had to mix their own concoctions.