Sir: I am sorry Mrs Worsthorne had to endure both
an extremely painful disease and what she conceived to be the imperti- nence of an ignorant medical attendant, though it is only fair to the doctor con- cerned to point out that shingles is a layman's name for herpes. Neither that, nor the distasteful description of the 'dirty.. : foreign doctor' concerns me so much as the way in which an educated middle-class family now thinks it appropriate to use the National Health Service.
I do not understand why, 'having had acute headaches and a tormenting rash on her face for a week', Mrs Worsthorne waited until Friday afternoon before tele- phoning; nor why it was thought appropri- ate on Friday to seek a 'Saturday emergen- cy visit'. What was going to happen to the disease overnight which had not happened in the previous seven days? Why did she not visit her doctor's surgery at some time between Monday and Friday? And why should she rather summon him to attend on her during a period which he might also be disposed to call a weekend? Doctor's waiting-rooms may not be very agreeable places, and the company not always conge- nial; but if one uses the NHS perhaps one ought to try to put up with that.
It may be that compression for literary purposes has excluded the solution to these puzzles, as I am also at a loss to understand why Mrs Worsthorne spent a fortnight in hospital, at public expense. Ordinarily shingles does not require the patient to occupy a hospital bed. He (or she) is normally at least as well off in the sur- roundings of home; and the hospital bed would be available to one who really needed it.
Dr H. I. Howard
Lasusa, Hendon Wood Lane, London NW7
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