HOSPITAL BENEFITS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 June 1939, Page 6

HOSPITAL BENEFITS

MAY OPERATE FROM JULY 1. MINISTER’S ANTICIPATION. (By Telegraph—Press Association.! NEW PLYMOUTH, June 7. It is the hope of the Minister of Health. Mr Fraser, that hospital benefits under the Social Security Act will operate from July 1, according to advice received at New Plymouth. Several points have yet to be decided by the Minister before the drafting of the regulations, it is understood, but it is expected that they will be ready late in June. Reactions of the visiting medical staffs toward the scheme have been reviewed by most of the hospital boards concerned. Generally the position is that visiting staffs will carry on when the hospital benefit is introduced, pending satisfactory arrangements being made about a uniform basis of remuneration., The executive of the Hospital Boards’ Association is to discuss the matter with the British Medical Association toward the end of this month or in July. Pending the outcome of that conference, it is stated, negotiations with the honorary staff at the Wellington Hospital are in abeyance. The Dunedin Hospital is in a similar position. At Auckland the visiting staff, which has the question of' remuneration under consideration, is said to be prepared to carry on as at present, but it is not willing to name a figure for remuneration till the whole question of medical service undei; the Act is settled with the Government.