Doctor numbers
Sir, — The case of the surplus doctors, as told (“The Press,” December 3) by none other than the Minister of Health, has upset me. By 1985 “there may be 800 doctors for whom there could be no medical employment.” I had always thought that more doctors meant more care for the sick, more preventative medicine, happier lives, fewer hospitals. How wrong I was. On the one hand, the 800 surplus could take the dole and we might imagine them going from door to door begging a few over-prescribed pills from well-stocked bathroom cupboards. Or they could gate-crash the closed shop medical union and “enter general practice, resulting in sharply rising costs of general, medical, pharmaceutical, and other benefits” the Minister’s own words. Sir, the mind boggles. Mine has boggled so severely since reading of this appalling prospect that my general health has suffered and I am in need of tranquillisers. 1 must see a doctor. — Yours, etc. R. R. BEAUCHAMP. December 3, 1979.
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Press, 5 December 1979, Page 24
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165Doctor numbers Press, 5 December 1979, Page 24
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