Health Service or "Panel"
1945 1945 1940s 4 pages Principles Re-stated Medicine has long outgrown its present form of practice and organisation. The British Medical Association has for many years demanded an extension of National Health Insurance, but public and political opinion has gone far beyond that idea. A really comp...
| Institution: | MCR - The Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick |
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| Language: | English English |
| Published: |
London : Socialist Medical Association
[1945?]
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10796/9E70300E-8043-48C0-A1D0-315B0577D6D6 http://hdl.handle.net/10796/401E824A-C844-434E-8B62-39B0C142E82C |
| Summary: | 1945
1945
1940s
4 pages
Principles Re-stated Medicine has long outgrown its present form of practice and organisation. The British Medical Association has for many years demanded an extension of National Health Insurance, but public and political opinion has gone far beyond that idea. A really complete service available to all citizens is a far bigger thing. It involved a new conception of medicine as a part of our social structure, as a force for the preservation and advancement of health as well as the cure of disease. It needs new machinery for every branch of medical practice but especially Health Centres so that the isolation of the General Practitioner (which the B.M.A. once regarded as the worst feature of modern medicine) can be abolished. The principles on which it should be built have been repeatedly stated by the socialist movement; unification, comprehensiveness, freedom from economic barriers, and above all a recognition that health being the concern of the people, they must decide on the scope, quality and quantity of the service. The New Proposals The White Paper went a long way to meet these principles, although still short of the policy of the Labour Party. The document which the B.M.A. and Mr. Willink have produced constitutes an attack on the above principles and it will be defeated only if the whole strength of the socialist movement is used in their defence. That attack is: (1) an attempt to reduce the proposal for a national health service to an extension of the "panel"; (2) an attempt to destroy the whole structure of local government; (3) an attempt to preserve the privileges of the high-income specialists by giving the voluntary hospitals a position of predominance in all parts of the health service; (4) an attempt to set up a medical bureaucracy which would introduce delay at every point, making progress even in the provision of hospitals and specialists virtually impossible; (5) the relegation of Health Centres to a long period of small-scale experiments which the B.M.A. would be in a position to sabotage. In addition it perpetuates the buying and selling of human suffering and ties the medical profession to the money-lender for at least another generation; and makes the provision of any scheme of pensions, holidays, study-leave and so on for the general practitioner impossible. This document is noteworthy for the almost complete omission of even lip-service to the supposed altruistic nature of the medical profession. No note of desire to provide the best possible service for the people of the country is allowed to mar the B.M.A.'s attempt to grab the power to control the service. Gone, too, is all reference to the need for preserving the citizen-rights of doctors employed by government or local authority. Where medical representation is called for it is to be B.M.A. or voluntary hospital representation and the thousands of doctors already in official employment are to be silent for all the B.M.A. cares.
292/847/3/59 |
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| Physical Description: | TEXT |