The Manawatu Herald. SATURDAY, MAY 2, 1908. STATE DOCTORS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 380, 2 May 1908, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. SATURDAY, MAY 2, 1908. STATE DOCTORS.

In the current issue of the New Zealand Medical Journal, the organ of the profession, and of which Dr. Fell, of Wellington, is the editor, the editorial article is based upon a very interesting letter from Dr. P. Clennel Fenwick, of Christchurch, in which the latter advocates the establishing of a Government medical service. In the article the Journal points out that during the past year members, both at Home and in the colonies, have been “ profoundly dissatisfied with things as they are,” and adds : “If the profession were overmanned the trouble would soon right itself. Men would seek other more remunerative work. But it is not so. The trouble is that doctors are exploited by the public. They work for nothing in the hospitals, so well-to-do people flock there to be treated for nothing. They are summoned from their beds or meals to accidents, for which they are never paid. They attend the benevolent homes and numbers of similar institutions free, and they give ambulance lectures free. The results of all this is that the time is ripe for some change. Whether Dr. Fenwick’s suggestion is a good one or not we are not pre-

pared to say. . . . It is time for doctors really to face the position and make up their minds how they will act, for that some change must be made seems quite certain. It looks as if things were tending to a solution on some such lines as these; that doctors should be divided into three classes. Class x, possessed of the best possible degrees and the highest scientific attainments, to be paid by the State, and to give their time in the main to scientific research ; class 2 to consist of purely operating surgeons ; and class 3 to consist of men with a mere pass

qualification. . . . With this division into classes there would be less inducement for the public to go to quacks for minor ailments, and counter prescribing by chemists and dispensing by doctors might be forbidden. ’ ’