SHORTAGE OF DOCTORS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLII, Issue 10109, 1 June 1917, Page 2

SHORTAGE OF DOCTORS.

(Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, May 31

Speaking’ on the subject of the shortage of doctors in tho Dominion, owing - to so many having gone lo tho front, or being at work in the camps, the .Minister for Public Health (Hon C. \V. Russell) said that some of the leading hospitals had recently been reduced to tho direst straits, and had had great difficulty in carrying on. “These facts,’’ he said. “and the shortage of doctors in the country districts of the Dominion point to the absolute necessity for the medical services of Now Zealand being mobilised, and some control exercised throughout the period of the war as to the location of medical men. So far as the large cities atie concerned, the medical men in them are feeling tile pressure of the large amount of additional work entailed on them through the absence of their professional brethren. The cities, with their large institutions and the staffs they possess probably will be able to win through without any material trouble, but that position

apparently does not apply in oilier districts. For example. 1 received word (lie other day from the Westland Hospital Board that there was only one doctor on the coast for 300 miles of country. 1 have been in conference with the executive of the British Medical Association, and understand that a mooting of the Association is to be hold shortly in Wellington, at which arrangements for the future will be. discussed.