MEDICAL SERVICE

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23448, 1 October 1941, Page 10

MEDICAL SERVICE

Sir. —Dr. Milligan’s, appreciation is encouraging, and his criticism stimulating. though the unbridled licence he desires for his profession is bad. Disease and crime similarly detract from human welfare, so that folk generally employ men of understanding who a? policemen and doctors perform operations as great feats and operate great feet as a performance dealing with crime and disease. If doctors and policemen get their incomes only from • fines levied on the sick and weary or the slick and beery, then it would be hard to expect them to reduce crime and sickness. Doctors are employed in that vicious manner now. It would be more intelligent to employ police and doctors alike, and pay them from the common pool, or the State, and value their efforts in accordance with their success in reducing crime and. sickness. State employed medical skill conquered disease in Panama, while privately-employed medical skill was defeated by disease in that zone. To give the present method of employing doctors fair praise, it can be truthfully stated that a swollen banking account frequently separates a man from his appendix and the swelling. —Yours, etc., H, J. BUTTLE. Darfield. September 28, 1941. Sir, —Your prominently displayed reproduction of last week’s “Zealandia” editorial is a typical example of Nationalist propaganda and methods. That editorial no more' typified Catholic opinion than do the leading articles of the daily press represent, the varied opinions of its readers. The writer of this letter for instance has for many years been a regular reader of. and subscriber, to both “Zealandia and “The Press,” yet holds, political convictions directly negative to, many of both papers’ editorial expressions. I regretfully note “Zealandia’s” intrusion into the political arena, and, as a Catholic subscriber, protest strongly against a religious journal being made use of for purposes entirely outside its legitimate orbit,; ;; , Those truculent members of the most stagnantly conservative union in .the . world, the British Medical Asspciation, who are arrogantly attempting to defy our Government and- defeat us progressive legislation, wpT‘t?e. agreeably surprised by religious approbation. It is sad indeed to flhd piece of the Church of the Nazarene so far forgetting its Founder's humble human status as to desert its high and holy call to collaborate and consort with modern replicas of the moneychangers of ;the Temple, ; Our Labour legislators, having made , every possible endeavour amicably to inaugurate a long overdue national medical service, they would now be failing in their-dutyto the electors if they allowed powerful, self-centred organisations to nullify the power entrusted to them. —Yours, etc., _ LET US REMBEHBEB . September 30, 1041.