Illness Without Privacy

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 925, 3 May 1957, Page 10

Illness Without Privacy

ILLIONS of people now know more about Sir Anthony Eden’s bile duct than they do about their own. What they will make of the information, it is hard to imagine; and it is even harder to understand why the illness and operation should have been described in such detail. A statesman’s illness is a matter of public concern; its nature and outcome must be announced, and the practice of issuing bulletins when great persons are seriously ill has long been established. Is it necessary, however, to be so precise about the state of a man’s abdomen when public issues no longer depend upon it? Newspaper readers might be interested to discover the relationship between the liver and the bile duct, though it seems strange to conduct a lesson in physiology at the bedside of a distinguished. patient. The case would have special interest for doctors, but professional curiosity is generally satisfied in medical journals. For the public at large, interest could be no more than curiosity, uninformed and _ idle. And the question arises whether this sort of curiosity should be satisfied. The relationship between doctor and patient is intimate and confi- dential. No doctor in New Zealand would reveal the details of an illness except to those most nearly concerned; and in the case of a notable figure the information published would not pass beyond general statements. In other parts of the world the practice may be different, though not necessarily better. Where is privacy to be looked for, if not in the sick-room? It has been argued in some quarters that a man loses all right to privacy when he becomes a public figure. But this is nonsense, and wicked nonsense at that. It is the sort of argument used by the proprietors of scandal sheets to justify the publication of news items which are damaging to reputation. A man who has risen in the world must expect to receive attention from reporters and photographers. What he says and does will be of interest to millions who have

never seen him. There are obvious ways in which he loses privacy that belongs to ordinary people. He cannot, for instance, make a journey in silence and obscurity, but must say something for publication before he enters the plane and as soon as he leaves it; and wherever he goes the busy cameras follow him, with microphones not far behind. There are men, no doubt, who enjoy this sort of thing: public attention sustains them. Yet somewhere the margin is reached between public and private, and life in high places would become intolerable if the line could not be kept distinct. The privacy of the great can be enforced: there are guards outside the palace, and sometimes outside a statesman’s home. Elsewhere, for many years, notable people have suffered intrusion, and have often been obliged to seek redress through the Courts. If the present age were judged by what is printed for public instruction and entertainment, it would seem to be the most illmannered in history-not as coarse and cruel as some, perhaps, but intolerably prying. The hunger for news, apart from the professional interests of those who try to appease it, is a _ social phenomenon that could only have reached its present stage with the aid of machines, Events now move so quickly that any sign of illness in a President of the United States could have far-reaching consequences. At the first news of an impending operation, the wires would be burdened with messages, and influential groups throughout the country would be ready for action. In such circumstances, clinical detail has more than a morbid attraction; and interest is aroused for a thousand different reasons, But men who are no longer powerful could surely be spared these attentions. Perhaps it is a little old-fashioned to believe that the state of a man’s internal organs is exclusively a family matter. Yet privacy is a precious thing-and doubly so for men who have walked among the flashlights, and now want only to be

left in peace.

M.H.

H.