BITTER QUARREL.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20543, 19 February 1935, Page 5

BITTER QUARREL.

Minister of Health and Doctors. £IOOO FIGHTING FUND. (Special to the “ Star.”) SYDNEY, February 7. •Not even the best friends of our .Minister of Health could describe him as a man of peace. Mr. Weaver undoubtedly possesses great ability and energy, but in his determination to “get things done ,, he frequently' becomes involved in quarrels with public men and organisations, and when he is attacked he has a considerable vocabulary of invective at his command. Just now he is engaged' in a bitter fight with the British Medical Association. He has always been inclined to resent the rather oracular and pontifical tone that the B.M.A. adopts in regard to the public health, and the means that ought to be taken to protect it; and 60 there has grown up among the doctors here a fixed belief that Mr. Weaver is “hostile to the medical profession.’* Doctors on Hospital Boards. Last week something happened which has set the B.M.A. and the Minister at variance again. The Hospitals Oommission decided that members of the medical profession, except in certain specified cases, cannot become mem her* of hospital boards. Mr. Weaver, who is chairman of the commission, stated that the legal interpretation of the Hospitals Act supported this view, as also the decision that in future doctors cannot act as directors of public hospitals at which they attend the sick in even an honorary capacity. The idea behind these restrictions, of course, is the generally accepted principle that members of public bodies must not derive any personal advantage from their position, either directly or indirectly; and it is understood that the law officers of the Crown support Mr. Weaver’s interpretation of the Act. But the doctors, generally speaking, regard this embargo as imnlvintr a slur on the honour and

credit to their profession, and they resent it accordingly. But in all probability nothing startling would nave nap pened if it had not been for some remarks made publicly by the Minister last week, at Parramatta. Mr. Weaver was discussing the position of the hospitals and the relations between them and the doctors, and incidentals he referred to the necessity for the practical experience provided by big hospital work for the younger medical men. What lie said amounted to this: That young doctors can and do go into private practice —and operate upon their patients —without having any practical hospital experience, and that, to protect the public, all doctors, before going into private practice, should be compelled by law to do hospital work for at least 12 months. “Slight Upon Profession.” This Ministerial pronouncement naturally aroused the wrath of many members of the 8.M.A., who are indignant because their proposed exclusion from the hospital boards is regarded bv them ns a slight upon their personal and professional character, and furious at the contemptuous terms employed by Mr. Weaver in reference to some of their colleagues. The president of the Xew South Wales branch of the 8.M.A.. Dr. A. J. Collins, bewail hostilities with a public challenge to the Minister to substantiate his charge that there are a number of “duds” practising medicine here. Dr. Collins argued that “it would be a crying injustice to allow a student to spend valuable time and money on a medical career, only to find, after six years, that he could not practise, owing to there being insufficient hospital positions available”: and lie protested strongly against Mr. Weaver’s alleged “hostility” to the medical profession. Mr. Weaver's reply was that he is in no sense “hostile” to the doctors, but that, he is chiefly concerned with protecting the general public. Facts and Figures. A« to the claim put" forward by doctors for admission to lioepital hoards, Mr. Weaver quoted some rather disconcerting statistics. These showed that, of 137 hospitals on whose governing bodies doctors have been eligible for appointment, 88 have no doctors on the Voard, and that the 74 doctors on the hoards did not attend more than 50 per cent of the meetings. At* to the alleged demand for the services of doctors on tkeee boards., the 74 medical

members at present represent less than 4 per cent of the total number of directors. When it comes to facts and figures, Mr Weaver is always well equipped for the fray. But Mr. Weaver always reacts to criticism, and his present, attitudo toward the doctors is one of defiance. He laughs at their claim, that they can bring legal opinions to controvert the views of the Crown lawofficers regarding the interpretation of the Act, and the warning that the B.M.A. is organising opposition to him in his own constituency, and that the doctors- have subscribed £IOOO as a fighting fund has moved him to further derision. “Let them try,** he is reported to have said. “They will need jEoOOO to do anv good, and then I*ll beat them.” It is all rather regrettable,and while the newspapers are urging the doctors to remember that Mr. Weaver lias clone good work for his Department, the Country party, at a country conference last week politely suggested to the Minister that he might “modifv hi* attitude toward the medical profession.** But Mr. Weaver has in the past received so many picturesque nicknames—- “ Hitler,” “Mussolini** and “Judge Jeffrevs.” for instance—that he is not greatly perturbed by the B.M.A. onslaught, and he will probably get bn own way in the end.