MEDICAL SERVICE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 September 1938, Page 8

MEDICAL SERVICE

COMPARISON WITH BRITISH SCHEME “MANIFESTLY MISLEADING.” REPLY TO DR. McMILLAN. (By Telegraph —Special to the “Times-Age.”) WELLINGTON, This Day. A reply to a recent statement issued by Dr D. G. McMillan, M.P., regarding the medical provisions in the Social Security Bill then before the House of Representatives was made today by Dr J. P. S. Jamieson, President of the New Zealand Branch of the British Medical Association. “Dr McMillan,” said Dr Jamieson, “in his statement of September 9 traversing a previous statement of mine still tries to bolster up his case by references to Sir Henry Brackenbury, stating them in an incomplete manner and thereby giving a misleading impression.” After referring to certain points raised by Dr McMillan, Dr Jamieson points out that Sir Henry Brackenbury held that the best standard of practice is fostered when patient and doctor make their own arrangements privately, free from the restrictions and regulations of any corporate contract. He regarded it as most important that as much as possible of that type of practice should be preserved in order that the general standard should be maintained and improved. “When Dr McMillan says that the relationship between the State and the doctor in New Zealand will be the same as between the State and the insurance doctor in England, he is manifestly misleading the profession,” states Dr Jamieson. “In England doctors conduct insurance practice and private practice together, and are remunerated for their insurance work from an insurance fund constituted by contributions of employees and employers, to which the State contributes only administrative costs. Under the New Zealand Universal system and so-called ‘free’ hospital, the general practitioner will have no private practice, and will be wholly remunerated by the State from the proceeds of an income tax. Whatever name may be invented to cover his ignominy, he will be a civil servant without the status, liberties, amenities and protections of a civil servant.”