DOCTORS AND PATIENTS.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—As a medical man practising in the division of the British Medical Association that Wembley is included in, I should like to traverse a statement of your correspondent from that part, in which he says that there are fifteen thousand doctors on the panels, each of whom, once there, "naturally wants as many of the patients as possible." Far from that being the feeling of the many doctors I have discussed the question with, the unanimous opinion has been not to encourage the insured to come on their lists, but to hand to each a form to send to the Insurance Committee their undoubted right to make their own arrangements for medical benefits. We medical men of the Harrow Division only went on the panel at the last moment, after being informed by the Chairman of the Insurance Committee that he had twenty-three doctors that he would dump down into Wembley, Harrow, and Pinner. As there are several young men lately started in the neigh- bourhood, it meant absolute ruin to them if the bulk of the doctors did not go on the panel. As an Irishman I have had many a hot argument in Ireland over the treat- ment of Ireland by England, and I have always held that whatever his faults the Englishman at heart was a just man. I feel I can no longer hold to that opinion, as I see the old faults of a section of my fellow-countrymen, "bullying and intimidation," being introduced by this so-called benefactor of the Liberal Parliament. When it comes to dealing with medical men the cry is, " Go on the panel or be ruined"—the answer of some of his satellites to three medical men. Ninety- five per cent. of the medical men on the panel are dissatisfied with the conditions, and their earnest endeavours will be to have their names removed as soon as possible from a panel that they feel is only there under a sense of shame and degradation to their noble profession.—I am, Sir, &c.,
AN IRISH M.D.
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