MEDICAL SERVICE

Hokitika Guardian, 21 October 1931, Page 2

MEDICAL SERVICE

ENGLAND AND UNITED STATES. BRISBANE SPECIALIST DRAWS . A COMPARISON. WELLINGTON, October 19. Contrasts between English and American hospital systems, and particularly between, the cost of medical services in the two countries, were* drawn to-day by Dr R. Graham Brown, a Brisbane specialist, who arrived by the MonoAvai. Much more provision was made in England than in America, he said, for those who/ were finable to pay, and the standard of such service in England was extremely high. There was a distinct tendency in London now for public hosp tal work to be taken over* by the London County Council. The ultimate end would be that the voluntary hospitals in England would be replaced by these public institutions run by pub];c moneys. Hospitals like Guy’s, Bart’s, Charing Cross, and others had all been run on voluntary contributions, and the Poor Law medical service had recently assumed unusual importance. The London County Council had taken over the Poor Law places and had begun to staff them so well that in several of these institutions some of the best work in England was being done to-day. In Vienna for years the clinics had been run by the Government and all the big hospitals there had Government appointments* NO FREE SERVICE.

111 the United States, Dr Brown said, they had gone to the other extreme. They had very little accommodation for the poor and what was called charity work generally meant that the individual had to pay at least for his board and lodgings. There was practically nobody in America, except the negro, and the out-and-out ‘‘hobo,’’ who got into a hospital for nothing. Everyone had to .pay, and sometimes at appaiently heavy rates. The cost of medical services was very high.

Dr Brown, who was accompanied by his wife, is returning from a trip through the United States to England and Europe, and back through the United States again. It is his fifth trip Home in the last eight years, and ho was present at the annual meeting of the American Medical Association at Philadelphia as well as at the annua! meeting of laryngologists at Atlantic City.