Support For Medical Research

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30191, 24 July 1963, Page 14

Support For Medical Research

The Canterbury Medical Research Foundation has well justified the public goodwill with which it was launched three years ago. Although swift results and immediate practical applications cannot be demanded of any scientific research programme, it is gratifying that certain of the projects aided by the foundation have already made useful contributions not only to the general fund of medical knowledge but to the direct relief of human suffering. Moreover, the retention of first-class research men in a hospital cannot but raise both its teaching and its clinical standards. To the extent that the foundation has helped to keep such men in Canterbury it has helped to maintain and improve the level of patient care in our hospitals. Uneasiness has grown, both inside and outside medical circles, over the tiny allocation to medical

research in the huge total of State medical expenditure. In particular, there has been wide dissatisfaction with the statutory inability of hospital boards to use State funds to foster research in their institutions. It was largely to fill this gap in the medical research programme that the Canterbury foundation and its sister foundations in other provinces were established. If the record of work in Canterbury is any guide, the foundations can be said already to have proved their value. They will need continued, and possibly increased, public support Whether this is expressed in attendance at the charity film premiere at the Regent Theatre tomorrow night or in substantial annual subscriptions to the foundation’s funds, the public will have the satisfaction of knowing that they are not just helping another worthy cause; this is, in the strictest sense of the words, public self-help.