Outpatient Treatment

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31657, 18 April 1968, Page 8

Outpatient Treatment

Sir,—l have been under the impression for a long time that if the time was incon-

venient to one’s own doctor or too far away from one’s usual doctor, anyone could get free medical attention at the outpatients department of the Christchurch Hospital. Is this not so? As doctors need time off from their work, just as other people do, I thought precautions were taken at the outpatients department to maintain harmony in the medical profession in this matter.—Yours, etc., A PATIENT PATIENT. April 3. 1968.

(The medical superinten-dent-in-chief of the North Canterbury Hospital Board (Dr L. McH. Berry) replies: “It is the policy to see patients in the outpatients and accident and emergency departments only on the recommendation of a doctor, or in cases of real accident or emergency. It is in the patients’ interests to have their ailments cared for by a general practitioner as he is in the position to give continuing care, and care in the home where necessary, and would normally have a much closer liaison with a family. If a doctor is away he normally has a deputy who can stand in for him. In spite of this policy, which I am sure is in the real interests of the patient, it is our firm policy to see anybody who attends, and although they may be referred to their general practitioner, we will have initially ascertained that no urgent treatment is required or else emergency treatment will have been instituted pending their attendance on their own doctor.”]