to attend to give evidence, under present circumstances, there being no register of duly qualified medical practitioners, the certificate of any practitioner might or might not be accepted as sufficient evidence of the fact; but under this Ordinance, if the law in any case requires to be satisfied of a certain fact, say the inability of a person to attend and give evidence, and it is laid down that fact shall be certified by a particular process, all this section says is that if the certificate of a medical man shall be forthcoming it shall be the certificate of one who, under the Registration Ordinance, is recognised as a duly qualified medical man. There is no intention in this Ordinance to place a person in the position of Dr. Fisher in the position of a duly qualified medical man. That were the case then the Registration Ordinance would be a farce; no one would register. Hon. P. RYRIES - The Attorney-General, as I understand, admits that persons practising in the colony have acquired some vested rights, and on that account he went a step further and gave them the right of recovering their fees. Then if they have any rights at all I don't see the justice of giving them one small piece and keeping another back. If, as my hon. friend said, the certificate of an unregistered practitioner will be received in court, and will be sufficient to get a burial certificate on, I don't see why this clause should be included in the bill, because I can hardly conceive any other cases where a medical certificate can be necessary. If these two objections are cleared away I don't see the use of the clause.
The ATTORNEY-GENERAL - Well, I may just put it in this way, to assist in an understanding of the position. In the case of a medical practitioner who has the right to practise although unregistered, the public has no concern and no interest in depriving him of his right to recover his charges; that concerns him and the person who thinks fit to employ him; they can settle it themselves, and the public are not concerned in preventing the practitioner from availing himself of the assistance of the law to recover that to which he is entitled. Therefore there are no public interests in the way of granting such a right. But in the case of certificates required by the public, and for the satisfaction of the public, public interests are concerned, and the question whether you will recognise a man who for other purposes is treated as a non-qualified practitioner as on the same footing as a duly qualified practitioner is a question in which the public have a distinct and direct interest. The question is whether the public interest is to give way to what is referred to as the vested interest of the practitioner who cannot qualify. What I would put to the Council is whether there is any such vested right in any person in the position, say of Dr. Fisher, to give certificates which would entitle them to have the public interest which is concerned in having all such certificates recognised as those of duly qualified medical men set aside in his favour.
Hon. P. RYRIE - What other certificates can be required, supposing death certificates and certificates of illness can be granted?
The CHIEF-JUSTICE - I suspect this is copied from the English Act without consideration.
Hon. P. RYRIE - I cannot see what other certificates can be required. If there are others required I can see that this clause may work great hardship. Persons may be paying non-registered medical men a small annual fee for attending on them; they are asked for some document, they go to their doctor and get it, and then they are told it is not sufficient, that they must obtain one from a registered practitioner.
The CHIEF-JUSTICE - If the hon. member could mention some case in which a certificate is required there might be some hardship, but I am not aware of any such case. This is taken from the English Act, and in England certificates are required for various purposes, but I don't know that any is required here. With regard to the Ordinance itself, I think it may be useful if I point out in a general way what is the status of the medical practitioner at home and what is his status here without the introduction of this Ordinance. In England at the beginning of this century a large number practised as apothecaries; others on diplomas issued by different bodies authorised to confer medical degrees. With regard to the apothecaries, although there was a society of apothecaries it was not required they should pass any examination,
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and indeed things were so loosely conducted that anyone might call himself an apothecary if he chose. It was thought necessary to put a stop to that state of things, and an Act of Parliament was passed requiring apothecaries in future - leaving medical practitioners who acquired their diplomas from universities or colleges at one side altogether - to pass an examination and be registered before they were allowed to practise, but the Act provided that all persons who were practising as apothecaries at that time, somewhere about the year 1815, should be permitted to practise without examination. Matters went on and in the meantime a number of people in England got diplomas from foreign universities, some from American universities, and it was found that these diplomas in many instances were granted to people who had never been to the universities or schools. They were granted to people in some cases merely on sending in some paper on a medical subject which was considered sufficient to entitle them to pass, and in some cases nothing further than the payment of a fee was required. There were a large number of persons practising previous to the passing of the Registration Act on degrees obtained in that way. That matter it was proposed to deal with. Well what was done by the Medical Registration Ordinance it was required not only that apothecaries should pass an examination, but that all persons who received a diploma from any of the colleges at home should also be registered, and they formed a Council, and without hearing what any of those persons who had obtained foreign diplomas in the meantime had to say, they handed over to this Council, by the Registration Act, the power of examining the diplomas of all those gentlemen who had obtained them abroad and to reject them or accept them for registration as they thought fit. At the same time it was thought necessary to legislate for the colonies, and in the Registration Act there are two sections which relate to the colonies, and the effect of these sections would, I think, be such, and I think has been held to be such, as to introduce the whole of the Medical Registration Act into the colonies. The consequence was that from the passing of the Medical Registration Act every English practitioner registered at home,
and all foreign practitioners registered in England, were permitted to practise in this colony, and were permitted to recover their fees. This clause with regard to certificates came into operation, and in fact all the provisions of the Medical Registration Bill at home in favour of medical practitioners, such as recovering their fees and giving certificates, came into operation in all the colonies without any legislation. Well, in the meantime some of the colonies, particularly one with which I am acquainted, found that local registration was necessary with them. English practitioners, or persons registered in England, were alone recognised as having the right to practise in the colonies. They were the only persons who by law had the right to recover their fees, they were the only persons who by law were entitled to give any certificate required by Act or Ordinance. There was growing up in the colonies a class of people who had been unable to afford to get medically educated in England, or to get themselves registered as practitioners in England, and they wished to get registration in the colony as much for the sake of these people, who, I they considered, were entitled to be registered equally with English practitioners, as to have the means of showing who were qualified persons and who were not qualified. I know as a matter of fact one gentleman who had had no previous acquaintance with medicine went to America and in six months returned with the diploma of MD from a university which I won't mention now, because it has reformed and is one of the universities now endeavouring to get a Registration Bill adopted there. We know that in the United States they have been unable to pass any such Bill; the country is a new one, the population is scattered, and up to the present they have found they were unable to pass a Bill for the registration of persons qualified to practise medicine, but there is a strong feeling in America that it should be done, and I have no doubt it will be before very long. But as I was saying, in the colonies, in the colony to which I particularly refer, I know representations were made to the Medical Council at home, and the Medical Council approved of the matter when it was represented to them. Thereupon that Act of Parliament was passed enabling all the colonies to form medical registration.
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