PATIENTS AND DOCTORS.

Patea Mail, Volume VI, Issue 518, 11 May 1880, Page 2

PATIENTS AND DOCTORS.

SIU, —What is the meaning of this dog-in-the-manger discussion about a doctor who won’t -attend on patients when wanted ? Travel'ing through the district, I have heard quite a crop of strange stories concerning persons taken severely ill with diphtheria, or what they believe to be that terrible disease; and I am told they cannot got medical attendance of any kind. You must-have heard that one or two deaths have occurred where a doctor could not be induced to attend. I am told that when Dr Keating visited Carlyle last Friday, he was so much wanted in the town and outside the town, that he did not know . which way to turn first. He took the most dangerous ease fiist, and that was the ease of a poor man’s wife who had been so many hours in labor that the relatives began to fear the woman wotdd die in agony for want of a doctor. I see it was stated in the Mail that she had been in labor over thirty hours. It was longer than that. Could any person of ordinary feeling believe that a doctor won'd refuse to go and see that woman, when-her desperate condition was made known to him ? Yet he did, and you may easily ascertain,’if you are sceptical, that his language and his manner wee both such as one never expects from a person o education. If Carlyle cannot maintai two doctors, wo 'must even do with one but, for goodness’ sake, lot that one do his professional duty like a Christian and a gentleman.—l am, Si' - , A PATIENT OBSERVER.

Sir,—l was .glad to sec that you had taken in hand the local D.Q.M.P. Considering the danger of that terrible complaint, diphtheria, while this district is left to Hie ca.c of one resident practitioner, I think it h>gh time enquiries were made as to the peril wo are a’l exposed to in being unable to rely on the prompt attendance of the one resident doctor. If he won’t co no vheu wanted, what are we to do ? Are doctors under no sort of compu'sion ? In the absence of legal obligation, can notldng bo done by moral pressure ? You say in your remarks on the D.Q.M.P., that In emergencies of life and death, doctors jvc expected, from motives of humanity, to do all that ski'l enables; them lo do in al'eviating the agonies of the sickbed.” I have searched the Medical Practitioners’ Act through and through, and find that the said Act is only to protect the profession and not the public, so that I shall hot .go into details of all complaints that might be, and most likely will bo, brought against the D.Q.M.P., bat shall await further information. I am sure the public will rejoice to bear that Dr Keating is going to reside in Carlyle, for-we.aU know him to be a gentleman as well as a doctor. —1 am, &c. JAMES LETT.