FEW DOCTORS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 158, 22 September 1941, Page 8

FEW DOCTORS

WAR CAUSES DEARTH IN

AUSTRALIA

Australian doctors, with theii ranks thinned by dcfence demands, arc now facing double, and sometimes treble calls on their sex-vices, said the secretary of the B.M.A. (Dr. Hunter). At present, about 400 of the 2200 doctors in New South Wales: are serving" with the defence forces. This sudden call on medical services, admitted Dr Hunter, had caused a serious shortage in resident doctors, especially for the smaller hospitals. This year, about 100 new doctors would emerge from Sydney University, but it was impossible to indicate whether they would solve the shortage or be so quickly absorbed that the problem would remain. j "Driven Hard" Dr Hunter saicl that demands were being made on doctors' services from all directions. "Not only are they required for active service, but also for home service, in militia work, and national emergency needs," he. added.'

'"With that multitude of jobs, and the necessity of keeping our hospitals up to standard, medical men are being driven hard.

"When all the other calls have been ansAvered, they are required to train people in first aid."

Students are still doing six years before graduating, but there are suggestions that it be reduced to meeting the shortage.

During the last Avar, the university course of five years Avas cut by several months, so that the graduates could fill the gap caused by 1000 doctors serving in the Army. Back to Practice Many Sydney doctors Avho retired some years ago are noAv practising again, it AA*as stated. They felt that the scarcity of medical men demanded their return to senace.

"If the war lasts two or three years, Ave will be up against a serious problem," said the chairman of the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (Dr H. T. Schlink).

"Nearly 70 of our staff are away but we have managed to replace most of them. We are hurrying up the courses of doctors here.

"The Senate of the University ma,v also consider shortening, as in the h\sit Avar, the period of the medical course."