Public Doctors.

Maoriland Worker, Volume I, Issue 1, 15 September 1910, Page 6

Public Doctors.

A correspondent writes : The Government should, provide public doctors, and rate the colony for their upkeep. A doctor should be placed in all parts of the Dominion amongst the settlers of the backblocks as well as the towns, and associated with him should be a certificated nurse. It is a very expensive matter tor the oack country settler to get the services of a doctor and a nurse, and why should it be so? Their wants should be looked after just as much as those in towns. They require the same looking after and are liable to the same sicknesses and disease. The Government should provide for death. Of course the societies are doing that, but it does not fall to everyone s way of thinking to belong to these societies; and with one good society in the shape of the Government, we should be able to better provide for these things. Sickness and death are very expensive, and in most cases fall heavily upon the shoulders of those who are least able to bear them. A fund could easily be spread over the Dominion, and the weight taken off the poor, who are not able to keep the wolf away when in health, and who are doubly weighted with debt and sorrow when death visits their humble homes. Sickness and death are things which come to all., and the burden generally spells starvation to those who are left in the worker's home.