§ 70. Mr. O'GRADYasked whether complaints have reached him from a number of chemists and drug store proprietors who have been dispensing for doctors that their exclusion from the panels as dispensers under the National Insurance Act is resulting in a loss in respect to this section of their business; and, seeing that these persons are thus disqualified from dispensing medicines through the passing of the Act, whether any steps can or will be taken to prevent these chemists from being driven out of business?
§ Mr. MASTERMANAs I have previously stated, no persons qualified to dispense medicines prior to the passing of the National Insurance Act have been disqualified from dispensing medicines by that Act. The Insurance Commissioners have no power to vary the conditions laid down in Section 15 (5) of the Act as to the supply of medicines to insured persons.
§ Mr. O'GRADYIs it not a fact that there are a large number of chemists in this country who are qualified although they are not members of the Pharmaceutical Society, and have been in the habit of dispensing medicines for doctors for a period of years, and is it not a fact that the Act specifically relates to those men when it speaks of having to get a certificate from a doctor to dispense?
§ Mr. MASTERMANI am not sure, but it only follows the limitation laid down in the Pharmacy Act.
§ Mr. O'GRADYDoes that mean that the Act constitutes a monopoly for the members of the Pharmaceutical Society to the exclusion of other skilled men?
§ Mr. MASTERMANThe Pharmacy Act lays down certain qualifications for chemists and those are embodied in the Insurance Act.
§ Mr. O'GRADYCan these chemists be placed on the panel of dispensers for things not down in the schedules of poisons?
§ Mr. MASTERMANI am not sure of that.
§ 71. Mr. O'GRADYasked whether in the east municipal ward of East Leeds there are 6,463 persons on the electoral register, and that for the larger population in the locality which this number represents there is only one chemist's shop at which medicines may be dispensed under the National Insurance Act; and whether, in view of the hardship that this imposes on poor people, as well as the danger to life in having to come from the opposite end of the municipal division to obtain medicines, the unregistered but qualified chemists in business in the neighbourhood shall be given the right to dispense under the Act?
§ Mr. MASTERMANI have communicated with the Leeds Insurance Committee, and they are making inquiries as to the adequacy of the number of chemists in the district referred to. I may, however, point out that in any case it would not be possible to authorise the supply of medicines requiring dispensing to be arranged by other persons than those entitled to make these arrangements under the Act.
§ 72. Mr. O'GRADYasked whether the prescriptions made out on paper by the doctor and given to a patient to be dispensed at the store of a chemist who is on the panel as a dispenser under the National Insurance Act many times contain a list of medical appliances; whether he is aware that this means that the sale of these appliances in the majority of cases is bound to go to such chemists to the loss of business of those chemists and drug store proprietors who can only be on the panels for the supply of medical appliances; and whether, having regard to the fact that a monopoly of dispensing has been created for the M.P.S. chemist under the Act and that a monopoly is also developing in respect to the supply of medical appliances, steps will be taken to alter this state of things?
§ Mr. MASTERMANThe National Insurance Act gives the insured person a free choice as to the chemists or other persons on the lists from whom he can obtain appliances, and I could not take 1504 any action which would have the effect of depriving the insured person of that choice.