REPLY TO B.M.A.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 August 1938, Page 7

REPLY TO B.M.A.

HEALTH SCHEME DEFENDED BV MR NORDMEYER NEED OF AN ADEQUATE SERVICE. THE ATTITUDE OF DOCTORS. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. Reference to the attitude of the doctors to the health insurance proposals was made by the Rev. A. H. Nordmeyer (Government, Oamaru), in his second reading speech on the Social Security Bill in the House of Representatives yesterday. He replied to points raised by the president of the New Zealand branch of the British Medical Association, Dr. J. P. S. Jamieson, and said that the Prime Minister’s declaration that if the medical men withheld their co-operation the Government would have to consider taking other steps, was a calm and plain answer to the profession.

Mr Nordmeyer was chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee which reported on the Government’s national superannuation and health proposals. Both inside and outside the House the Opposition had suggested that all that was necessary was a more adequate service for the poor and needy, said Mr Nordmeyer. The very opposite was the case. There was hardly any section of the community that could face a long, expensive and critical illness. When the health insurance scheme in England was about to be introduced the doctors there were thoroughly opposed to it,- but after it had been in operation for some time they themselves asked for its extension. “Let me say that the' Government does Stand for the principle of collective bargaining,” Mr Nordmeyer observed in the course of a detailed reply to Dr Jamieson. “It hopes to have the goodwill of the majority of the profession, but no Government worthy of the name would allow the community to suffer under an imperfect medical system merely because the doctors were not enthuiastically in favour of the Government.”

The Opposition, said Mr Nordmeyer, had suggested that the country could hot stand the cost, but that if, the people were to provide for themselves an amount similar to that which the State provided, the country could afford it. Surely there could be no greater inconsistency than that? The Bill was calculated to have an immense and far-reaching effect upon the destinies of tens of thousands of people. It had been conceived and had attained legislative form only after the most careful thought and the most careful scrutiny Of every provision and only after the most careful investigation on the part of the Government, •not only of the immediate, but also of the remote consequences of bringing the scheme into being. To suggest that the Government had not been regardful of all the facts was to show scant regard for the facts. “I am satisfied,” concluded Mr Nordmeyer, “that as the years pass this Government will be blessed by many people in this land because of the humanitarian and beneficent proposals contained in the Bill now before the House.”

CO-OPERATION DESIRED. HON. P. FRASER REPLIES TO DR. JAMIESON. WELLINGTON, This Day. The hope that it would be found possible in the future for the medical profession to offer a.measure of assistance that would enable the people of New Zealand to have the full benefit ' of the Government’s proposed health services is expressed by the Minister of Health, the Hon. P. Fraser, in reply to Dr. J. P. S. Jamieson, president of the New Zealand branch of the British Medical Association. In a letter addressed to the Minister this week Dr. Jamieson indicated that as long as . the principle of a universal general practitioner service remained in the Social Security Bill the association could offer no further co-operation to the Government. Mr Fraser’s reply is as follows:— I regret that the association is not prepared to offer further co-opera-tion in regard to the national health section of the social security proposals. Please accept my thanks for the assistance the association has found itself able to extend up to the present moment. * I hope that it will be found possible in the future for the association and the medical profession individually to offer that assistance and cooperation which are necessary before the people of the Dominion can have the full benefit of the proposed health services.