HEALTH SERVICES

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 282, 26 August 1939, Page 2

HEALTH SERVICES

Extension Considered Long Overdue VIEWS OF KING’S DOCTOR Lord Horder, the King's physician, in a striking speech to delegates at the annual conference of the General Metlieal Practitioners’ Union, in Blackpool, said that an extension of the health services was long overdue, and, in an outspoken passage, declared: “To preach health to people living lielow the poverty-line is the grossest hypocrisy.” Lord Horder, who remarked that it might surprise many of them to know that he himself was once a member of the union, congratulated it on the “scope aud practicability” of its memorandum, “First steps toward the improvement of the general medical services of the nation.” This was the fitting time to try the ease, for a reorientation had set for the doctor who now saw himself the centre of the world of the people’s health. To effect this reorientation the doctor must grasp its potentialities, as also must his patients understand the increasing possibilities of medical service that were at his disposal. Doctors had a right to expect that their labours would be unhindered by defective services. A Great Difficulty. “One great difficulty in implementing the reforms and the progressive steps which most of us consider necessary,” said Lord Horder, "is the deplorable tendency to regard medical and social improvements as planks for politicians. How I wish that the inviolability of the Reigning House from party politics could be extended to the medical profession 1” It was difficult today for the young doctor to dissociate himself from party polities, yet Lord Horder believed this essential, even at some cost to the deter. The doctor’s duty was to humanity. Polities and the doctor’s profession were, of course, by no means incompatible. “I disagree profoundly with those who decry a swing to the Left in times of youthful enthusiasm,” said Lord Horder. “Immunity from enthusiasm is, after all, only a sign of senescence.”

Lord Horder said that the doctor's unchallenged power was caused by his impartiality aud Ills remaining detached from distracting affiliations. He held a watching brief for the common man. He was glad to see that the memorandum, though making tacit admission that all was not well in the health services, did not take the extreme view of some that they should be scrapped altogether aud that a fresh start should be made.

“We cannot scrap our health services and start, from scratch unless ‘bloody revolution’ should us an opportunity, which, in this country, it is very unlikely to do. Suelf a thing would entail chaos and enormous expense. In Russia there has been such a chance and it has been taken. Soviet health services, the doctor included, have been worked out with great thoroughness on a communal basis. This plaij eliminates the notion of the family unit, to which we attach great importance, disallows a free choice of doctor for the citizen, and also makes continuity of care impossible.”

Lord IJorder said that to one aspect of the matter he had frequently called attention. “I refer to the anomaly introduced by the economic factor, a factor which I, for one, decline to regard as being outside the statesman's control.

“But it is exasperating to see that the months and years pass and the anomaly still persists. To preach health to people living below the poverty line is the grossest hypocrisy.

“After that, which is not really our job, what else can be done? There is, as this memorandum states, an extension of the health services which is long overdue—the inclusion of the dependants of the insured worker in the scheme of health benefits. I am glad that you put this reform high up in your list of ‘first steps.’ ” The means whereby the services of the general practitioner could best be made available for the whole community was a tough problem, but the solution should not be impracticable. “As for the principle, I support it strongly because I hold that the means of health should be open to everj’ citizen independently of his income, and have already stated as my convict tion that the essential link between tlie citizen and the means of health is the family doctor. Any workable sehenie to be successful in this country must recognize this fact and must put it in the foreground of its programme.”