HOSPITALS FOR THE POOR

Southland Times, Issue 23310, 21 September 1937, Page 6

HOSPITALS FOR THE POOR

STARTLING CHANGE IN ENGLAND NEW ZEALAND DOCTORS’ ADVANTAGES (Special to The Times) DUNEDIN, September 20. Lavishly appointed, and staffed with doctors well versed in the most modern principles of medical practice, new hospitals for the poor have replaced the archaic institutions operating under the Poor Law in England. This was the startling change noted by Dr Frank Sligo who has returned to Dunedin after spending several years in hospital work in London. Each of these new institutions concentrated on specializing in separate diseases, he told a reporter today, and they were rapidly ousting voluntary hospitals, their control being vested in the London County Council, thus making them more or less State controlled. “New Zealand doctors will always obtain a post in England and a good one at that,” he said. “One reason is that when they leave the Dominion for overseas they have had experience as house surgeons at the public hospitals in the four centres, thus equipping them and giving them the necessary qualifications for work in England. As opposed to this experience a graduate from English universities enters at once into private practice. The Old Country is the Mecca of most New Zealanders, more going there than from Australia and Canada. “Another factor that makes England an open sesame for doctors from the Dominion is the intensive research into the incidence and control of goitre here.” Dr Sligo thought that sport filled the minds of the people of England more than did the thought of war. Nevertheless, because the Continent was an armed camp England was carrying out her programme of rearmament with characteristic thoroughness, not only for her own protection but because of her commitments to a scattered Empire. There did not appear to be any apprehension over compulsory conscription, the general opinion being that only a small standing army was necessary as opposed to the Continental policy of arming to the teeth. England was more interested in making her air force the best in the world.