Health Services

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30191, 24 July 1963, Page 6

Health Services

Sir,—Dr. J. H. Maclntyre’s article in “The Press” today stating that the New Zealand health service is superior to that of Britain cannot go unchallenged. In New Zealand I was told I would have to wait at least nine months to have a certain operation: that same year I returned to Scotland and had the operation done absolutely free within three months of arrival. Furthermore, in New Zealand, one has to pay full price for such essentials as false teeth and spectacles, whereas in Britain these items can be had for a quarter of their real value. My weekly contribution for these services was less than I pay in New Zealand for a much less comprehensive service. I am surprised that • a man of Dr. Maclntyre’s calibre should use the word “superior.” After all. I don’t think Otago has—medically speaking—displaced Edinburgh yet,'—Yours, etc, D. RANKIN. July 22, 1963.

Sir, —Dr. Macintyre, in his survey of the above, rather surprisingly ignores the fact that Britain’s population is 25 times greater than ours, but

it does not have 25 times the number of hospitals. Indeed, many existing ones were damaged or destroyed in the war. Hence, perhaps, the chronically long waiting-lists. In 1945 a doctor who had built up a good practice with a high purchase price found himself suddenly placed in a category of pensionable civil servants, and his practice unsaleable. At the same time he was inundated with a vast number of registered patients who for 4d a head a week could call unrestrictedly on his services. A relation of mine who in his youth had slaved on a panel in the East End, but later bought a good practice in Bath, firmly opted out of the health service at the risk of losing half his feepaying patients, so souldestroying had he found that early experience. If the quality of medical service is declining in England, it is scarcely surprising. Our