MEDICAL SPECIALISTS

Evening Star, Issue 24330, 20 October 1942, Page 2

MEDICAL SPECIALISTS

ULTIMATE SERVICE POSSIBILITY SALARIED MEN AVAILABLE TO PUBLIC (Special.) WELLINGTON, Oct. 20. Appreciation of the tact that the Government had acknowledged the place of specialists in the medical profession bv authorising refund of portion of the fees paid to medical practitioners for specialist services was expressed by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Holland) in the House of Representatives yesterday during the committee stage of the Finance Bill (No. 2). Tliis was a point, he said, which the Opposition had been emphasising for a long time, and he was glad that at last its representations had been successful. Mr Lee: Could you use your persuasion on the doctors and get them to give way ? M r Holland said the doctors had been reasonable throughout, and had been ready to co-operate in the scheme they were prepared to work. The Minister of Health (Mr Nordmeyer) explained that the provision had been made in the Bill because when specialists claimed that they were specialists, patients had not been able to receive tbe 7s Gd refund in the past. It did not follow that the services rendered by the were services which could be performed only by him, or bv another specialist, but because of the law the Health Department was unable to pay the refunds of 7s Gd in respect of their services. An important point was that the clause in the Bill was retrospective to November 1, last year. The Leader of the Opposition had suggested an increased fee for specialists, but there was a difficulty .in this connection. The medical profession itself would find it exceedingly difficult to give a list of specialists. There were men who were outstanding. and who automatically put themselves into the specialist class, and there were others who were borderline cases. There were others again who claimed to be specialists, and who had little claim to the title. In the meantime, it had been decided to confine payment to 7s Gd. That did not mean that the Government was satisfied this was all it could do about specialist services. The Government, when the opportunity presented itself, would extend the medical benefits along the lines of providing a fuller specialist service than the Bill provided. A study of modern practice, said the Minister of Internal Affairs (Mr Parry) was in the direction of showing that the specialist was putting the general practitioner out or practice. “Although this clause is quite a good one, and progressive, it is not going to- solve the big problem we have, in New Zealand at the present time,” said Mrs Drearer. In few eases had specialists in New Zealand the academic qualifications for that title. Special attention would have to be given to this particular class of service. These men were wanted for the public generally, and not just for private practice. Mr Lee considered that the maximum fees should be fixed before a Government subsidy was fixed. The prices of shoes, of other goods, and of the soldier’s pay were fixed. If the people wanted protection from unsocial racketeering in war time they wanted it in peace time also. Mr Poison said that the reward claimed by the specialist was sometimes unreasonable in comparison with the amount awarded, to the ordinary practitioner. The irritation of the public had never been with the ordinary practitioner to the extent it had been with the specialist, who often. charged extortionate and ■ extravagant fees. In many cases specialists’ charges were reasonable, but he thought the State might have to do something further—perhaps subsidise specialists’ fees—to make specialists available to the ordinary citizen.

Mr Nordraeyer said that since the introduction of the social security .scheme the services of obstetrical specialists had been made available to women also radiological specialists in all of the major public hospitals. The services of specialists were freely available to both in-patients and outpatients. It was tremendously difficult to fix a fee. If a fee for specialists ,was to prevail, it was likely that when a specialist service was introduced by the Government it would be along the lines of providing specialist and consultant services with the specialists on a salary basis and their services available to the public on a full-time basis.