THE DOCTORS AND PUBLIC HOSPITALS, ETC.

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 76, 22 December 1924, Page 10

THE DOCTORS AND PUBLIC HOSPITALS, ETC.

Sir/ —Allow me to raise the question whether our public hospitals are for the use of the public or for the use and convenience of the doctors. At any rate the public hospitals appear to be used as a dumping ground for such patients as are not likely to be able to afford the luxury o£ enjoying less efficient nursing provided at private hospitals at, as a rule, astoundingly high fees. Ths private hospital is, I regret to think, becoming a seriously commercialised institution in this Dominion: and I confidently maintain that in the pul> lie interest the medical profession should be, at the earliest possible moment, nationalised, on very much the same lines as our educational profession. Our teachers render quite as important social service as our medical men, and the “learning” of the average teacher is, probably, of a higher order than that of the arer-. ago doctor. I think that, in Scotland to this day, in connection with every public ward in a hospital, there is a private or semi-private ward for Such as can afford to pay a reasonable fee for medical and hospital services; and such a thing as “dunning” publicward patients for hospital fees is unheard of. Very few even of salaried men with small families . can afford (under the existing conditions in this Dominion) to pay from £lO to £2O a year for medical services; and to avail themselves of the doubtful luxury of a private hospital means, as a rule, a year or two of financial embarrassment. I have several instances in my mind as I write. Here is one: A few months ago a parent, a salaried man with a large family, called in a doctor to his son, who was ill. The trouble was diagnosed as appendicitis. The parents were reassuringly informed that appendicitis in these days involved no more serious an operation than having a tooth out. The boy was within two hours spirited off to the doctor’s private hospital. The operation took under an hour. The boy was in hospital for fifteen days—apart from the actual operation nursing alone did all that was required, for the doctor never once saw the wound after the operation. The account for medical and hospital services amounted to nearly £7O. Here was a moderately salaried parent with a large family cslled upon to pay nearly £<o for an operation represented as no more serious than a tooth extraction 1, Recently the wife of a personal friend of my own was confined in one of the dingiest, maternity hospitals, in this Dominion. She was in hospital for lust a fortnight. Hospital fees (medical fee not included), £l9. How can the poor, or even moderately salaried parents, contemplate familyi-raising or even marriage at all? Let our statesmen ‘tak a thocht” and give us a square deal nationalised medical service.—l am, ete ‘* “FATHER.” '