FREE MEDICINE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 January 1942, Page 5

FREE MEDICINE

CHECKING OF ABUSES ACTION BY GOVERNMENT. AMENDMENT TO REGULATIONS. (Bv Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON. This Day. An amendment to the regulations governing the pharmaceutical benefits scheme under the Social Security Act appears in yesterday’s Gazette. The general purpose of the amendment, said the Minister of Health, Mr Nordrneyer. in an interview last evening, was to prevent abuses such as the supply at the cost of the Social Security Fund of pharmaceutical requirements merely to be kept on hand in case they were required. It would be improper, for instance, in future for any person to stock a first-aid cabinet at the cost of the fund or to procure cough remedies and purgatives in case they should be required on some future occasion.

i The regulations were also intended to check irregular and excessive prescribing on the part of certain medical practitioners, said Mr Nordmeyer. It was only fair to say that the great majority of medical men were playing the game so far as the operation of the scheme was concerned, but unfortunately there were a few who made these regulations necessary. The case of one doctor in particular had been so bad that the matter had been referred to the Medical Council, which had suggested that regulations should be gazetted dealing with such malpractices. In future, if it appeared to the Medical Officer of Health that any medical practitioner was prescribing in an unnecessarily expensive way, the case might be reported to the appropriate committee for such disciplinary action as was necessary.

Further amendments prescribed the method of writing prescriptions. Printed instructions on prescription forms ordering repeats would not be permitted, and if repeats were to be required they must be written on the prescription by the doctor. It was further provided that no midwifery orders should be issued earlier than three months before the expected date of confinement, and they were to be supplied for use only during labour and the lying-in period.