DOCTORS ATTACKED.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3770, 10 September 1907, Page 3

DOCTORS ATTACKED.

A discussion on the medical profession cropped up m the legislative Council on Friday afternoon during the debate on infant life protection. The subject was raised by the Hon. J. Barr (Christchurch), who declared there were men in the medical profession who were not a credit to it. He had known an Old Country medical man so heartless as to tell the parents of a sick child that it would not live, and there was no need to trouble seeing that there were others, and it would not be missed. The day had come he said, when we would have to take the medical profession out of commercialism. They viewed things from the point of pounds, shillings, and pence. Doctors had come to the house, and asked if they were going to get their money before they attended the patient, or they would have nothing to do with the case. This was the curse, commercialism. Medical men were not called in by the poorer classes until the last moment. The Hon. Dr Collins; That is not the fault of the medical man. ALLEGED EXORBITANT ..FEES. The Hon J. Barr: The wages of the individual worker are so low. and the fees are of such a high character, that, the parents hesitate because they cannot afford the fees. They hang back, and try their little remedies. The Hon. Dr Collins: There are the hospitals. The Hon. J. Barr replied that hospitals were only in the centres of population. Doctors’ charges in New Zealand were altogether too exorbitant for the working man, he continued, and the hesitation which was displayed in calling the doctor was a cause of innumerable deaths. “AN UN WARRANTABLE ATTACK.” The Hon. T- Kennedy Macdonald promptly took the other side of the question. He declared that a most unwarrantable attack had been made upon the medical profession by a gentleman who was ignorant of the conditions of colonial life. The previous speaker had not lived long enough in the colony, nor mixed with the various stages of society sufficiently to understand the conditions. A colonial experience ot fifty-three years enabled him (Mr Macdonald) to speak with some knowledge of the whole question, and the attack which had been delivered was the worst, the most unfair, and cruel which had been delivered in regard to the medical profession. He had mixed with the members of the profession, and had found no men more benevolent, or more prepared to make sacrifices.' No profession has less of the commercial spirit; no profession did more for nothing than the medical profession. If his friend knew ths amount of money which was written off the books in the medical profession he would be perfectly amazed. For every twelve visits made by the medical men, only seven or eight were charged for, one-third of the work of the ordinary doctor being done for nothing. He hoped that, before the previous speaker was much older he would take the opportunity of mixing very freely with the gentlemen he had condemned, and see their cost-books. Then he would realise what a grave injustice he had done the medical profession in his speech. There were “black sheep” in every profession, but it was a very rare thing to find in the medical profession a man so sordid as pictured by the previous speaker. The Hon. J. Barr explained that be did not slander the whole medical profession. It was in regafd to certain members of it that he had spoken, and he had given his experiences; he could give others. The Government should take the medical profession under its control, because, although there were honourable members in the profession, as in every other, there was a considerabe number of what he still held were “ black sheep.” (Cries of “ No , No.”) The Hon. Dr Collins: When you say there are a number of “black sheep” it is,a slander. Probably my experience is larger than yours.