DOCTORS' FEES.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIC, Issue 13393, 17 September 1907, Page 3

DOCTORS' FEES.

"CURSE, OF COMMERCIALISM." • Some remarks made by the- Hon. J. Barr in the Legislative Council the other day on "The <Jurse of Commercialism," when ■ alluding to the medical profession and to the 'fees charged by doctors, are very generally condemned in Wellington. ]jr Mason," in an interview with the Pest, said: "I know of no class of men who do anything like as much gratuitous work as the medical profession, it has to be remembered, of course, that a medical man like everv other worker, has got to pay his bills." He has to keep hia wife and family, and of necessity must have Lome returns for his services. It may be that here and there throughout the world cases occur of refusal to visit a sick person because he has no money, but I am perfectly certain that these cases are very lew. ' ttpeaking generally I should say that a medical ,unn in many caises wilt only get some 50 per cent, of what he has earned. A thing that is isometimes forgotten is that the doctor, unlike the members of any other profession or trade, has probably done more to bring about a state of matters, which, if carried to their fullest extent, would leave him, like Othello, without an occupation. The initial step in all reforms making for the health of the community have baen taken by medical men." "What do you say with respect to the foes and the "ability of the working man to pay them " * "Although," replied Dr Mason, "thenominal fee may seem to some peple considerable, I am certain that very few working men need go in fear and trembling to a medical man and eay, 'I am sorry I cannot pay all this?' In the majority of instances I am certain the medical man will say—that is, if the patient is a. decent sort of individual 'let it- stand over, and if ever you can pay you can let me have it,' or "'what can you pay towards it?' And he will accept whatever the man says. This is done regularly. "Then," added the doctor, "you have got toi remember that the hospitals throughout the colony arc, with the exception of the resident medical man, officered entirely by medical men who receive no payment whatever. A surgeon attached to" a big hospital where many operations are performed will, of necessity, have to devote some two or three hou-irs a day to that work. For this he receive:; no reward. "With respect to the working man the case where the shoe pinches hardest is very often where the breadwinner k laid up through illness. The cost incidental to. sk-kr.e.'s. apart altogether from the medical man's fee, may )>.; considerable, and if the pal lent is not a member of a friendly society, it taken him a long time to make up the leeway, which his illness has occasioned, and seme-times the fee which very often he does not pay, lonics large. The advice which the old Scotch surgeon used occasionally to give to his apprentice has a true commercial ring, viz., "Aye, get the fee when the tear's in the 'ft.' That may savour somewhat- of commercialism, but is an undoubted fact which any medical man can support, that the value of a medical man's servicer, varies inversely to the distance in time of ihe illncsy. Tho common supplication of the heartbroken woman is 'Won't spare any expense, doctor. Don't think of that.' That is in answer to the doctor's .statement- that there is no need to come three or four times a, day to see her husband. Her remark when the bill comes in and the husband is better is slightly diif.Tvnt.''