MEDICAL INSURANCE SCHEME

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 22, 27 January 1938, Page 8

MEDICAL INSURANCE SCHEME

; . (To the Editor.) j Sir, —As New Zealand is the healthiest country in the world, according to the Official Year Book for 1937, there does not appear to be any necessity for altering the present system. The arguments used in, favour of the.scheme may sound all right in theory but do not work out in practice, as will be seen from friendly society statistics published in the 1937 Official Year Book. Members of friendly societies are at present entitled to the privileges of free medical attention, free nursing, and free medicine, and under the proposed scheme these privileges will be extended to everyone in New Zealand. The membership of friendly societies, apart from honorary members, is restricted to first-class lives, and members have to pass a severe medical examination before being allowed to join, and therefore they should be much healthier than the rest of the community and should live longer.

If, therefore, this free service was such a boon, its good effect should be self-evident in the friendly societies, and should be clearly seen in the statistics. However, the reverse is the case, as, according to the 1937 Official Year Book, the deaths of friendly society membei's averaged 8.5 per 1000 /or the years 1931-35, while the general average lor the whole of New

Zealand for the same period was 8.2. Sickness also appears very high, as 21,763, representing 22.8 per cent, of the members for the year 1935, were sick, aggregating 259,811 six-day weeks, equal to 12 weeks for each sick member and two weeks four days for each member. ■, ■

This is certainly astonishing, and I think is due to the fact that anything free is abused. It is well known that many friendly society members go Jo the doctor on the slightest provocation ,and take full advantage of free medicine. This difficulty will be greatly intensified under a universal scheme, with corresponding bad results, for there is no doubt that under the proposed scheme the doctors will be rushed by the thoughtless people, and a large part of the doctors' time will be taken up attending to them, to the detriment of genuine and more serious cases. Apart from the waste of time and drugs! this will'entail, it will also be necessary to increase staffs in order to cope with the work and thus make the scheme much more expensive than the present system.

It is claimed that we are out of, date, and that many other countries have adopted similar schemes, but can statistics be quoted to prove that the introduction of such schemes was-re-sponsible for lowering the death-rate in those countries'? Why follow other countries when our own results with an, independent medical service are muchbetter; and, apart from the above,- it! appears, to me that unless the Govern-j ment wins the co-operation of the! medical profession it will. not have I the people behind it. Governments: come and go, but the medical, profes-1 sion is here for good, and the people j who are receiving good service from | the doctors will side with them and I object to their conscription against, their will.—l am, etc., | NEW ZEALANDER. j