“Public Are Abusing The Hospital System.”

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18451, 30 April 1928, Page 4

“Public Are Abusing The Hospital System.”

PATIENTS OFTEN GET FREE SERVICES UNDER FALSE PRETENCES, SAYS MEDICAL MAN.

THERE seems lo be an impression amongst Christchurch doctors that a complete change in public hospitals from honorary staffs to stipendiary staffs is inevitable. Several doctors stated to-day that Dr W. Fox, medical superintendent at the Christchurch Hospital, might he quite right in a way in stating that most members of the profession will regard tlie day when the profession is fully commercialised as a sorry day, hut they agree that there is a decided tendency in that direction.

Some of the older doctors blame the commercial spirit amongst the younger doctors, a spirit manifested amongst vour.g men in many other vocations. ” Brought to a Climax.” A more definite opinion, expressed by one of the old school, is that a section of the public and “ local and general politicians ” have brought to a climax the movement Dr Fox deplores. This doctor states: “ The demand for comnv realisation of hospital staffs is a :esu!t of many abuses in cases where doctors, through the hospitals, give free services to the poor.” These abuses, he is confident, have destroyed the good feeling between doctors and poor people. lie partly blames the “ local and general politicians ” for asserting that everybody has a right to enter a hospital and inducing people who can pay to get free services “ under false pretences.” “ Tiie resentment of the doctors." he said, “ is so great that their work at the public hospitals is not done with the zest and joy of the past. If the public were honest with the profession,

and if only those who could not afford to pay were admitted to the public hospitals, those who need the very best services, but have no reserves to fall back upon, and no hope of any, would have the most careful attention of the finest members of the profession. The public, as a rule, will never have the best service? from salaried doctors at the hospitals. One or two salaried doctors, whose lives arc consecrated to their work, will give their best services, but the majority, I am sure, will give just the measure of service necessary to ktep their jobs. “ Abusing the System.” " I support Fox in his opinion that the commercialisation of the honorary staffs will be retrograde, that the standard of medical excellence will be lowered. and that the public will be deprived of medical opinion now available to thexe who enter the public hospitals; but the le.'i.ion why doctors arc not whole-heartedly giving their services today is that many of the public are simply sw ndung them by abusing the hospital system.”