Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1941. APPROACH TO AGREEMENT.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 October 1941, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1941. APPROACH TO AGREEMENT.

THE New Zealand branch of the British Medical Association finds some objectionable features still remaining in the amended proposal's brought down by the Government with regard to a general practitioner service. Observations by Sir James Elliott" which were reported in our second edition yesterday are conspicuous, however, among other indications that at least an approach has been made towards agreement between the Government and the members ol the medical profession. Some grounds appear lor hoping that the whole question wdl be carried into a quieter atmosphere, in which there will be much better prospects than have appeared in recent times of building up a well-considered national health scheme.

For a number of reasons, the proposals now before Parliament and the country must be regarded as far from perfect and they fall considerably short of embodying all that should find a place in a national health scheme even in its comparatively early stages of development, ’faking account. hovexei, both of recognised community needs and ol the generally high standards of the medical profession in this country there should be no doubt that any agreement now reached would open the way to reasonably rapid development on the lines that are widely regarded as desirable both by medical men and laymen. Without going to the extremes that have been touched ol late by some members of Parliament and speakers in outside meetings, it should be possible to agree that there is plenty ol room in this country for a more effective, organisation ol medical services, to be achieved progressively, not only in the establishment and extension of clinics and other special establishments of a related kind, Ind in measures consciously ami purposefully directed to Idling standards ol health to the highest possible' level. That progress on these lines will entail some further nationalisation of the medical prolession. is hardly in itself a cause for alarm either Io the doctors immediately concerned or to the community. It is obvious that in recent and needlessly embittered controversy some opponents of the proposals now before Parliament, have been led into absurdity where the nationalisation, and alleged State regiment at ion of the medical ’profession is in question. Medical men, like other sections of the community, are entitled to just and equitable treatment and it is repugnant, to our national ideals and practice—save in the case ol military service in. time of ’war —that any citizen should be compelled to become a servant of the State. To suggest, however, that the employment of some doctors —even of a large number of doctors —as salaried servants of the State would subject them to indignity is to raise a particularly stupid and unconvincing bogy.

If there were anything' in this contention, which has been raised freely in several quarters of late, not only the fairly numerous body of doctors now employed by the State, and Impractical purposes also those employed by hospital boards, but most members of the teaching profession, the police force and other public servants in their various categories—in the aggregate no inconsiderable proportion of the total population of Ihe Dominion —would all have to be regarded as constituting an oppressed and unfortunate class. The relative proportions of private medical practice and ol' national medical and health services organised unde)- the authority of the State may well be determined, as time goes on, in light of experience and of community needs, with fair regard to the rights and interests of all concerned. Taking account of conditions already familiar and well established, however, it is merely preposterous to suggest that the employment of medical men by the State necessarily involves some sort of vicious attack on sound principle