UNNECESSARY CALLS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 237, 6 October 1945, Page 7

UNNECESSARY CALLS

SERVICES OF DOCTORS

STORY OF A CRYING WOMAN Parliamentary Reporter WELLINGTON, this day. The story of a woman who could not stop crying after going to the pictures and seeing a sad film was told by Mr. Denham (Govt., Invercargill) in the House of Representatives yesterday afternoon in support of his allegation that doctors were called to attend too many trivial cases. , A doctor received an urgent call to a home, said Mr. Denham, and found that the mother of the house had been to a sad picture and could not stop crying. He told her not to go to any more sad pictures, and for that service the State had to pay 12/6.

Mr. Denham said that not only doctors but patients were taking advantage of what should be one of the best medical schemes in the world, so the Government could not altogether be blamed. He thought the solution to the problem of unnecessary calls on doctors was an extension of the district nursing service, which had been most successfully operating in the Hokianga district for three years. There, efficient nurses were attending to minor medical matters to which a doctor would be called and a fee paid in a city.