One Probable Effect Of Medical Scheme

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 298, 13 September 1941, Page 11

One Probable Effect Of Medical Scheme

Sir, —Everyone should be grateful to you for taking a stand against the Government’s coercion of the doctorsMost people do not understand what the scheme would mean, and I should like to give my experience. As a young woman I kept house for a brother in whose practice were a great number of lodge patients, and I never ceased to be astonished at the trivial things these people would come about. My brother was a. very strong man when he started, but in a year or two was so worn out he had to take in a partner. This man soon dropped to the cry of “Wolf, wolf,” and used to refuse to hurry.

I shall never forget one dreadful day when I could not make him believe he was urgently needed for an accident. He maintained it was just the usual exaggeration of the lodge patient, and that he would find little the matter when he got to the house. My brother had gone a long trip into the country and though he drove spanking horses and went like the wind, by the time he got back that day all the two doctors could do was to save the life of one man, the other three were beyond help. That could not happen in these days of ambulances and nursing homes, but the system is the same, and if we were all panel patients the doctors would be overwhelmed by thoughtless people, and the only way they could save themselves (my brother died a camparatively young man) would be by “going slow” —when probably it would be the innocent people who would suffer. On the other hand considerate people would put up with a good deal rather than add to the burden of an overworked doctor, and often enough would put off calling him in till it was too late. The Government’s scheme would be bad for both patient and doctor, and unless it is just to show its power, .one cannot imagine why it should want to bring misery oti countless numbers. —I am etc., EXPERIENCE. Wellington, Sept. 12.