STATE MEDICAL SCHEME

Southland Times, Issue 24879, 20 October 1942, Page 4

STATE MEDICAL SCHEME

Specialists’ Fee Advocated (P.A.) WELLINGTON, October 19. During the committee stages of the Finance Bill in the House of Representatives today, the Leader of the Opposition, Mr S. G. Holland, expressed appreciation of the fact that specialists had been brought under the medical scheme in social security benefits. Mr Holland said the doctors had been reasonable and were prepared to cooperate in the scheme. Now that specialists were recognized there should be a specialist’s fee for their services. The Minister of Health, the Hon. A. H. Nordmeyer, said an amendment to provide for the payment of 7/6 to specialists was necessary because under the Act they could not receive payments from the fund for their services. It had been decided to give them the same rights as those enjoyed by general practitioners, and the clause had been made retrospective to November last year. There was a difficulty about a special fee for specialists because the medical profession itself would find it difficult to give a list of specialists. There were specialists by right of ability, but there were others who claimed to be specialists who had little claim to the title. Consequently, the Government had confined the payment to 7/6 from the fund. That did not mean that all that could be done had been done. He was satisfied that as soon as the opportunity presented itself fuller specialists’ services would be provided for. MAXIMUM FEE URGED Mr J. A. Lee (Dem., Lab.) said the maximum fee of doctors should be fixed. The prices of shoes and soldiers’ pay were fixed. Why people should persist in upholding and extending v the principle of racketeering he did not know. Mr W. J. Polson (Nat., Stratford) said that the reward claimed by specialists was sometimes unreasonable in comparison with the amount awarded to the ordinary practitioner. However, in many cases specialists’ fees were reasonable, and he thought the Government might do something to subsidize these fees and so make the specialist available to the ordinary citizen. Mr Nordmeyer pointed out that the services of obstetrical and radiological specialists had been made available, and specialists were also available in most of the public hospitals of the Dominion.