Supply of Doctors Being Maintained

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 752, 27 August 1929, Page 8

Supply of Doctors Being Maintained

NEEDS OF COMMUNITY LACK OF HOUSE-SURGEONS lFrom Our Resident Reporter J WELLINGTON. Monday. Health authorities disagree with a public statement of Dr. Frank Ward, Medical Superintendent of Palmerston North Hospital, that there is a shortage of doctors. It is admitted by the Health Department that at the moment there is a shortage of house-surgeons for public hospitals, due to the fact that New Zealand institutions have largely in. creased their facilities for treatment within the last year or two and the further fact that country hospitals are rapidly growing. The demand for junior house-surgeons thus created, it is sail, could not be met by anv medical educational system in the world. The present shortage is largely du e to the falling off in entrants to the medical profession since the war. While the war was in progress the number of doctors absent from the country- caused great shortage of medical men and the classes in the medical school rose very considerably. _\t that time something like SO graduates a year were turned out by the University. After the war the public realised that the profession did not offer anything like the same oppor tunity to young men, and the number of entrants for the medical course sharply declined until recently only 30 graduates left the University. Lately there has been an increase to 40 which appears to be sufficient to meet the needs of the community. The problem now facing the Health Department and the hospitals is that the needs for junior house-surgeons are greater than the vacancies occurring in the professional ranks. This problem appears to be world wide and is very difficult of solution. As far as the needs of the general communityare concerned, however, there is far from a shortage of medical service.