LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
DOCTORS AND THE STATE
Sta,—The issue of arbitration that Dr. Margarct Jackson' mentions in her article, The Doctors' Real Work, is more than the sufficiently knotty one of the relations between the Government and relatively highly-paid employees. Medicine has hitherto been conducted in this country under ethical rules which are popularly covered by the "Hippocratic Oath," which broadly insists that the doctor's duty is always to do his utmost for his patient. Now, however, the medical profession is practically put under the control of a Minister, who is responsible solely to Parliament which, with due respect, is but ill- informed on medical matters. If this continues without some sort of compulsory arbitration, it is clear that the doctor's deference will, in time, inevitably tend more and more to the State and less to his patient ; i.e. we shall have taken a definite step towards the set-up of medicine in Nazi and other totalitarian regimes. For the safety of the patient and the freedom of medicine it seems that some way should be found of making the Minister somehow responsible also to the profession as well as to Parliament. This raises questions of great constitutional complexity, but they should have been faced before the new Health Act was passed. That they have not so far been faced and solved is no excuse for putting off their consideration still further, while the Minister every day strengthens his hold on the profession and, through it, on the intimate life of every one of us. This is an issue which transcends party politics and
is of fundamental importance.—Yours faithfully, W. N. LEAK. Dingle House, Wins ford, Cheshire.
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