CHANGING WORLD

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 3, Issue 288, 28 March 1941, Page 7

CHANGING WORLD

MEDICAL SERVICES BIG PLANNING COMMISSION A Planning Commission, "to study wartime developments and their effects on the country's medical services, both present and future," has been set up by the British Medical Association. Between GO and 70 prominent physicians, and surgeons l«ive been selected to serve on it. Among them are Lord Dawson oi Penn, Sir William Girling, Sir James Walton. Sir Alfred WebbJohnson, Sir Francis Frenmantle and Dr. Somerville Hastings, chairman of the L.C.G. Hospitals and Medical Services Committee. Dr. T. Fraser, consulting physician, Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, is jjresident.

The association states, in announcing the commission, that it believes "any disadvantage which may be attached to the size will be more than offset by the advantage of its fully representative character." In selecting the names the B.M.A. have had the collaboration of the English Royal Colleges, the Scottish R.o\"al Corporations, the Society ol Medical Officers of Health, the Medical Women's Federation, the Faculty of Radiologists, and the Parliamentary Medical Committee.

The members are representative of all these bodies. It has thus upon i.t men of all shades of medical experience, and is to be, it is authoritatively stated, the market place in which its members, as sound Athenians, will discuss what is new and reject what is false.

Commenting that the war has thrown into sharp relief the deficiencies of our peacetime system of administering relief and promoting and maintaining the health of the people, the British Medical Journal says: "The B.M.A. now proposes to prepare for the return of peace so that medicine may be ready to meet its responsibilities in a world in which many values will be changed, fresh conceptions of society will be formed, and in which new stresses and strains will appear in the moral, material, and economic fabric of democracy." It is also reported that the Medical Practitioners' Union, confronted with the "slow execution" of-'pri-vate practice, is to ask for a salaried State medical service free to everyone. The union, it is stated, suggests that within a salaried medical services there should be free choice of doctor by the patient. It also makes proposals for the method of recruitment and thr? duties, penalties and compensation of the doctors

involved.

"Slick Salesmen" Balloted

The gradual draining away of good selling skill and experience from men's -wear shops by the demands of the Services, is a problem that is becoming acute, remarks the "New Zealand Draper." As staffs become depicted and new and lesser experienced men are called in to replace them, the general level of selling is bound to fall, unless appropriate steps are taken to counteract this tendency. A strong case is made out for the training of new men and the maintenance of the high standard of New Zealand salesmanship.