MEDICAL OBLIGATIONS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 10 June 1913, Page 3

MEDICAL OBLIGATIONS.

"x\ T 0 MORAL RESPONSIBILTY."

. A tragic story of a man's inability to procure the services of a doctor to attend his dying wife was told at a recent inquest at Hull (England), as reported by the London Daily News. Deceased was - the wife of Thomas Bradley, a railway {roods porter. Bradley said that his wife, who expected her confinement six weeks h-ence, on Friday night began vomiting, and he sent for Dr Barker who refused to come. She became worse, and witness went himself. The doctor told 'him through the speakingtube that he could not possibly come, and advised him to go to other doctors on the road. He tried two other doctors, but both said they -could not attend. He returned home, and finding his wife worse called on two other doctors, with the- same result. Dr Edmund Barker said he told Bradley he was worn out and could not go. Hie woman's death was due to concealed hemorrhage, arising out of her condition. She could not have recovered. Owing to the enormous amount of work put upon them by the iT'.vnraiieo Act his partner and himself found it physically impossible to do the amount of night work they had previously done. Bradley was not on his panel. He should have engaged a doctor to attend his wife, as he would get the maternity benefit. He told 'Bradley if he could not get another doctor to come back to. him. "We don't want to be unkind or unchristian," added the doctor, "but, like working men. we want a certain amount of rest." The Deputy-Coroner said there was no legal obligation on a doctor to attend a case, and if he was physically unfit through fatigue the moral obligation also disappeared. A verdict in accordance with tho doctor's evidence was returned.