Doctors who become politicians

A problem that recently raised its ugly head again is how well can a doctor perform his daily medical obligations to his patients and, at the same time, act efficiently as a minister or parliamentary secretary or member of Parliament.

These parliamentary offices, all agree, are important government posts which, in this global international context, are becoming more onerous and demanding.

They are also adequately remunerated by the State.

What is more, one very often hears arguments that ordinary members of Parliament should be better remunerated and made whole-time public officers if they are expected to discharge their parliamentary duties efficiently.

The history of our House of Representatives since 1921 tells us that many doctors served as members of Parliament without compromising their public duties or their medical profession. Most of them have been general practitioners.

There has been an instance, however, in 1947 where a Minister of Health who was also a surgeon resigned his ministry after a few months because he realised that he could not pursue his two careers simultaneously without falling short of doing justice to one or both of the duties he had assumed.

The Public Service Commission had later decided that a consultant serving in a public hospital could not stand as a party candidate in a general election and hold on to his hospital appointment.

This measure helped substantially to avert the undue ‘politicisation’ of the medical profession.

Unfortunately, the decision was put in abeyance when a senior member of the Nationalist Party who also held a consultant post in a public hospital decided to contest in a general election in the 1960s. He was also an ophthalmologist.

We now have a class of doctors cum politicians who exploit their ambivalent situation to further their careers in both fields.

This, I hold, does not advantage either calling.

To serve as a minister or a parliamentary secretary properly and efficiently requires the whole-time engagement of an incumbent and no exception should be made to this rule. It is, after all, the free choice of a medical consultant to venture into the arena of national politics and this does not make him or her an indispensable specialist.

We are fortunate to have more than sufficient talent to go round.