Pre-symptom tests “wouldn’t pay”

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32903, 29 April 1972, Page 9

Pre-symptom tests “wouldn’t pay”

Large-scale multiphasic health screening in New Zealand would not pay, says Dr R. Fairgray, the secretary of the Post Graduate Medical Federation.

Multiphasic screening is examination of a patient in an effort to detect disease before any symptoms occur. Dr Fairgray has just returned from the annual conference of the Australian federation in Canberra, at which the advantages and disadvantages of such tests were discussed.

Dr Fairgray said that the cost of the examination would outweigh any advantages it might have. In Australia, 3000 selected persons who underwent the test were found three years later to have done nothing to help their condition, and had failed to take any advantage of the medical service, even though appointments had been made for them with doctors.

There was also difficulty in interpreting questionnaires, and a relatively low detection of abnormalities in symptom- free patients in relation to the high cost of such screenings, said Dr Fairgray. It might be that such screenings should be reserved for private patients and not be a charge on the community, he suggested. In addition, patients who were declared fit could gain

a false sense of security, he said. The conference also considered ways in which individuals and society as a whole could counteract the effects of pollution, alcohol, drugs and cigarettes.