QUALIFIED APPROVAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 October 1941, Page 6

QUALIFIED APPROVAL

OF AMENDED MEDICAL BILL ’-.RPPPSSED BY SIR JAMES ELLIOTT. ONE OR TWO REMAINING DIFFICULTIES. (Ey Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. On the whole, I am pleased with the amendments to the Bill and I think the medical profession will assist to make it a more workable measure and carry it out in a proper spirit if cue or two of the difculties I have enumerated are surmounted,” declared Sir James Elliott, when asked for his comment cn the changes made in the Social Security Amendment Bill. “It all goes lo show that tinkering with a system that has lasted and given satisfactory service for more than two thousand years is not the simple job that some politicians fondly imagine,” Sir James said. He added that many of the most obnoxious principles in the original proposal had been removed by the latest amendments. He could not. see any objection to the people, under the so-called free medical services Bill, getting their own money back which they had paid out in taxation towards the payment of their medical accounts. This, in his personal opinion, was as beneficial to the patient, as it was to the doctor, because for many years doctors had attended to various physical derelicts for no payment at all. “I think the profession will have cause to feel grateful to the more moderate and openminded members of the Cabinet for the concessions they have macle, in the proposed amendments, to public opinion.” said Sir James. There were one or two points that still remained obscure. The principal flaw, as far as ho could see al present, was withholding (he rights of doctors as citizens to have access to Courts cf Justice to recover fees justly due. This, it would be understood, was a fundamental riglTf of every citizen under the British Constitution, and it looked at first sight as if the Minister of Heakh in this respect was going to take on himself the rights of a court of law. "I should think that this putting the doctors outside the common protection of the law will be a very objectionable feature of the Bill unless' it may be justified as a temporary or war measure.” said Sir James. Fie added that it was difficult to understand the somewhat clumsy arrangement made for payment for medical services. It seemed that the doctor must give a receipt to the patient who would take that receipt to the Post Office and draw the money cut of the Social Security Fund. Supposing the patient had no money to pay at the time of a consultation or visit, how was he to receive a receipt for .■payment? WAITING FOR DETAILS DR. JAMIESON DECLINES TO COMMENT. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. “It seems that there are amendments proposed which are to come down in Committee—there has been a general statement as to what the amendments arc tp be, but what their actual words and effects will be I do not know," said Dr. Jamiesson, chairman of the Health Committee of the New Zealand branch of the 8.M.A., when he was communicated with at Nelson today. “For that reason, I would not like to comment on the new proposals in the meantime.” Dr. Jamieson also declined to comment on the general statement made by the Minister of Health.