CALLS FOR DOCTORS

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30631, 23 December 1964, Page 14

CALLS FOR DOCTORS

Advisory Service At Week-ends

Doctors who are members, of the committee of the Can-, terbury division of the Brit-' ish Medical Association are. taking turns to be on call) at week-ends to supervise the: emergency medical service, I the president of the division, (Dr. D. T. Stewart) said yes-1 ter day. The committee member on duty took calls referred by the St. John Ambulance Association from persons unable to get medical help through ringing their own! doctor's telephone number, ;Dr. Stewart explained. The ! system had been in operaI tion for about three months, and had proved most useful. ‘ Ten calls had been referred over the three months, eight of them urgent. In (most cases the difficulty was 1 found to lie in a misunderstanding: either the patient 1 thought the wrong doctor was ;on call, or the wrong telephone number had been rung.

The panel was supervisory only, added Dr. Stewart. The idea was not to give medical advice directly, but to sort out problems and where necessary pass a patient over to a suitable doctor.

| Nureyev Better.—The Russian ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev yesterday left the London Clinic, where he had ihis tonsils removed last week. —London, December 22.