UNPAID DOCTORS.

Hokitika Guardian, 28 June 1924, Page 4

UNPAID DOCTORS.

O .MEDICAL -MEN AND THE CALL OF IIFMANIi Y."

<)• late (~avs the ".Medical World") there lias been a crop of instances where a doctor refusing to answer a summons to a serious case has been pilloried as a result of an inquest. We have referred to one in which the remarks of a well-known novelist occasioned much newspaper comment; in another a doctor in the north was censured by a coroner’s jury because it was stated that lie refused to vi-il at aged woman without pro-payment o his fee, s ; , that she died unattended by any medical man. As il appeared that the deceased had long been ailing and was quite past medical aid, a censure seems undeserved. In a country dis trin where all the circumstances, liniui cinl as well as clinical, of a patient arc known to the doctor he may lie excused if he demurs to making a long, useless and unpaid visit with the added disadvantage of an actual oilt-01-poeket loss in ear expenses. 'I hese are all matters outside the ken ol a lay clitic. Il is bad enough ter a man win. has his living to earn to he expected to work for nothing, but when he incurs a tangible pecuniary 10-s by obeying what the public arc so fond of describing as “the call of humanity" it is necessary fur him to strike a balance between Ids humanity and the duly he owes to his family. But ernphatiealy this applies only to such eases as that quoted; a summons to an emergency or an unknown case demands a compliance with ethical muons no less than the exercise of mmmou sense. AVe have a well-founded suspicion that most of the people so loud in decrying a doctor who hesitates to work without pavilion! are those slowest in meeting their own doctors’ bills, if, indeed, they trouble to pay any attention to them.