MEDICAL FEES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21366, 20 June 1931, Page 16

MEDICAL FEES

•' ro niE. editor Sib, —When I was writing on the attack on the status of public hosiptals and registered nurses I referred to the fact that medical men from professional interests had let both public hospitals and registered trained nurses down. I suggested ; that a defensive attack from the. side of common work-a-day people was overdue in respect to the most honoured, privileged, protected, and most highly paid of any profession or occupation, the medical profession. Dike other professions of educated and cultured men, the medical profession has been more than ■ able: to look after itself. Like all professions, it has in its ranks most gifted men who are constantly doing gracious acts to’the needy and the sick, and loved and honoured by all who are privileged to know them. When you take the profession as a whole, it has all. the virtues and all. the faults common to other occupations;—in short, it is human like the rest of us. It. is not surprising, therefore, that efforts have been made by public hospitals and benefit societies, on the part of the common people, to meet the anxieties and expenses incident to our lot in life. Unless I am mistaken, the medical profession lias not been conspicuous in its efforts to assist the people in making its services as available as, say. those of the teaching profession. Both are equally indispensable, and both, I venture to say, should be equally regulated by democratic control. Our public hospital system is an effort in that direction. More is needed. The letters appearing in your columns just at the moment make it opportune to refer further to this subject, Though I am well aware that no thanks will be accorded by this highly privileged and highly paid section of the community. I beg to express cordial agreement with the letter of “ Equality No. 2.” in your columns this morning, to which you add a cold solution - in'.your leading columns, which will, no doubt, receive the assent of the medical profession, but will add no comfort to people generally or to those who have medical fees of £SO to £IOO to meet, besides other charges. It happens that _ this morning, when contemplating writing a little on this subject, a letter from a near relative, whose husband is on the library staff of an American University, has just come in. If I quote some sentences from it I shall not be thought , of as reflecting on the New Zealand profession in particular. The medical 'profession is the most powerful and highly paid everywhere. What I recite is an incident of everyday occurrence. My relative says her daughter was taken with acute appendicitis and rushed to the hospital. By the time she was operated on her appendix had burst. Two nurses attended her day

and night. She has just come home two weeks ago. “Well now, for her expenses, just to let you have an' idea of the money it takes here to be sick. In the, first place, we have only one hospital, no State hospital. If we did, it would be a little cheaper. 'Her own room was £2 a day besides board; her two nurses were £1 6s a day each of them, while the doctor s operation cost £75, and our own doctor had £6 for giving ether. She was 65 days in the hospital, her going to the doctor for dressing the incision is all extra, and we counted a total of over £3OO. Now, don’t you think we could have taken a nice trip to see you on that money.” I need not make local application of the fact that the medical profession is the most. privileged, protected,, and most highly-paid occupation in ' the community As your correspondent says, £IOOO to £2OOO seems to be regarded as the right thing. As ife well known some doctors, •not to say “ specialists,” are said to make sums far beyond that. Just'what medical. men think of their services is illustrated by a recent appontment to a medical^ chair at £2OOO per annum. That is all without risks of loss or of market values such as the most highly-remunerated business men have to encounter. Should healing the sick, any more than other indispensable and honourable occupations, be so privileged, protected, and highly paid? Re form in this respect is surely overdue. In organising medical for ail the people, we seem much behind the Homeland. —I am, etc., June 19. P. B. Fraser.