FALSE MEDICAL ALARMS

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXII, Issue 11450, 26 February 1931, Page 4

FALSE MEDICAL ALARMS

MINOR STREET MISHAPS

CALLING UP OF DOCTORS

Much annoyance has been caused for some tim 0 by fruitless calls to Gisborne doctors to street accidents, and it is not that. tho time may arrive* when the services of a medical man will be hard to procure for such mishaps. Practically all the medical men of tho town have suffered in this way. As soon as a collision occurs, and some ono is seen dazed or perhaps just giightly cut, it has ■ become quite the usual thing for some well-meaning persons to rush to the nearest telephone and inform a doctor that his services are required. On the occasion of a recent slight mishap at Waerenga-a-liika, no .fewer than, five doctors were summoned by various* persons. On Tuesday evening a collision occurred in Upper Gladstone Road, and, despite the fact that the time was about 10 o’clock, the usual crowd assembled. A well-known doctor who had had a strenuous day and had retired to. rest, received acall for his services’. He questioned the caller if medical am was required, aud was assured that it was. He hurriedly dressed and drove to the scene to find, on 'arrival, that no one present needed imerdical attention; in fact, the crowd did not seem to know what had happened beyond the fact of a collision, and the" amazed medical man proceeded homewards. Questioned on the matter yesterday, he said that the position was rapidly arising when lie would not attend street accidents’, as lie had had so many false alarms. Then, and lie recognised this fact, the occasion might arise where a doctor’s services were urgently required. Personally, he had no objection. to ■ attending either day W night * to'any bona lido, street accident, but > tho present lackadaisical method did not tend to enlist the sympathies of medical men. He suggested to tho public that, in case of uu accident, the St. John Ambulance Assn, should he informed, and, if they rang for a doctor, the'medical man would know that such service was necessary., In the majority of cases, it was his opinion that the person was injured, only slightly, and was'removed home long before the arrival of a doctor, who. as a rule, could gain no • information. **' -