DOCTORS OVERTAXED,

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1775, 13 June 1913, Page 6

DOCTORS OVERTAXED,

BRITISH INSURANCE ACT IN OPERATION.

Medical benefits under tho Insurnuco Act arc to a large extent non-existent in London, and nothing less than a scandal, says Mr. Rocklift', secretary of the Joint Committee of Approved Societies. Largs numbers of the insured, he declares, are quite unable to obtain adequate medical treatment or often any treatment at all. Mr. RocklifT, the secretary of ,a committee representing over seven millions of insuTCtl persons (more than half tho insured ia tho country), is urging that doctors with more than 2000 insured patients shall not be allowed to receive any more. Mr. RocklifT states that tens of thousands of insured persons are not obtaining anything like proper medical attention under tho Act and many are paying for a private doctor. , ... ,n "The panel doctor," be says, has so many patients that it is quite impossible for him to treat them all. A return lust made shows that 38G doctors on the Lond»n panel have over 1000 patients each. The following table shows the enormous numbers which some doctors hare undertaken to treat:— Doctors. Patients. > 93 1,500-2,000 80 2,000-3,000 20 3,000-4,000 3 ; 4,000-5,000 g 5,000-7,000 "Of these last three one hn's undertaken to look after 6925 persons, another 6017 persons, and tho third 5550. It is clearly impossible that all these persons can receive proper medical treatment from ono doctor. "The number of doctors on the London panel is 1250; the number of insured under the Act is 1,400,000. This gives an average of a little over a thousand for each doctor. But tho patients are by no means so evenly divided. "If you calculate tho incomes of some of these overworked doctors you get some startling figures. Taking 'the average of 6s Bd. per annum which is paid as capitation tee for every insured patient, a doctor with 7000 patients makes .£2500 a year over and above his private practice. If he bo in a poor district—as ho will be with such a large number of patients— his income before the Insurance Act became law probably did not averace more than from .£3OO to dC4OO. "Ono panel doctor boasts tho the could quite well deal with 10,000 insurance patients. Another maintains that ho can see a patient, examine him, diagnose his complaint, and give him tho Temedy all in three minutes."

Recently Colonel Chaloner submitted to tho Houso of Commons a resolution that the administration of tho Insurance Act bo brought "into harmony with tho spceclies made on the subject by tho Chancellor of the Exchequer and other members of the Government before the Act bccamolaw." After a discussion, in which Mr. Lloyd-George's pledges wero severely criticised, the motion was rejected by 270 votes to 77, a piquant feature of tho situation being tuat tho Government wero voting against the Act being administered in accordance with Mr. Lloyd-Georso's promises—"Daily Mail."