CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 219, 15 September 1943, Page 2

CORRESPONDENTS' VIEWS

DOCTOKS AND THE HOSPITAL

(To the Editor)

Mrs. Dreaver states that hospital doctors are paid £10 a week for nine hours' work daily. The actual position is this: House surgeons are paid about £5 a week and their keep. They work a minimum of 60 to 70 hours a week, as well as being liable to be called any night, or all night. The average is a call once or twice a week, losing perhaps two or three hours' sleep, which cannot be made up. And no overtime. Some of the visiting doctors are certainly paid £10 a week. Pcst-graduate experience, which entitles one to be called a specialist, is gained not in New Zealand, but in the post-graduate schools of England and the Continent. A senior physician has the responsibility of about 80 beds. He makes three to four official visits a week. In between he is liable to be called to the hospital at any time for urgent consultation: A senior surgeon operates twice a week, and his list may vary from five to ten operations for a general surgeon to about twenty for the orthopaedic, who may find himself operating well into the afternoon. Even more than the physician, the surgeon is liable to be called at night for emergency surgery he and his house surgeon operating well into the night—again no overtime. For this a senior man receives £500 a year, a junior £300. The position was honorary until made stipendiary by the Government. It was neither requested nor desired by the profession. There are still men who refuse this payment. Of the allegation that the hospital is not full and that doctors say so merely to force patients into private nursing homes, I would say:—(l) The Auckland Hospital has a complement of BEO beds; (2) the day after the statement was made there were 1069 patients occupying beds (this does not include Green Lane Hospital). In fact, the hospital is so full that even cases labelled "urgent" are subjected to close scrutiny by hospital authorities in a vain effort to conserve beds. MEDICUS.