DOCTORS FARE WELL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 254, 25 March 1914, Page 4

DOCTORS FARE WELL.

According to Scottish newspapers panel doctors under the National Insurance Act are receiving handsome returns and were a proposal made for the discontinuance of the scheme, the strongest opposition would come from this medical practitioners—the men who at one time threatened to wreck the whole undertaking. The reason of their changed view is that they have found the National Insurance scheme something like a little goldmine. Probably in no place in Scotland have the medical men found a richer harvest than in Dundee. Owing to peculiar circumstances there is a paucity of medical men in that city. In Edinburgh, for instance, there is on the panel one doctor for every 700 insured persons; in Glasgow the average is 1200 persons for each doctor; whereas in Dundee there is only one doctor for each 1600 insured persons. Altogether forty-two Dundee medical divide between them 08,000 patients, who bring in £23.800. The large nuinbw of 12,000 persons, however, have not selected a iloctor. and medical benefit has to be deducted off the doctors' earnings plus a percentage of it which the Insurance Committee, allows to them, lint taking the number of persons for whom doctors aie receiving payment as 50,000, the large, sum of £1!),000 is being divided among forty-two medical men of thecity, giving an average of £406 13s -Id each. One Dundee doctor has 3900 persons on his list, and he thus receives from this source alone an annual revenue of £1305: another iloctor has 3600 persons with a revenue of £I2OO, and another has 3300, with £1155. In other words, three Dundee doctors are earning an average of £I2OO per annum and an aggregate of £3780. Three other Dundee panel doctors are earning from £875 to £IOSO each from lists which include between 2500 and 3000 person?.