Prescription charges
LETTERS
From Dr Marjory E. Plumb, L. E. Weidberg, Leonard Cottrell, G. Armstrong, R. A. Cline, D. M. Llewellyn Smith, Brigadier F. E. C. Hughes, Margaret Mole, K. E. Crawley, Lord and Lady Strabolgi, Francis King, E. G. Hill, Nial Charlton, 1. C. Maxwell, Diana Prior- Pabner.
Sir: When are we going to stop using this emotive word 'sick' in discussing the re-imposition of pre- scription charges? Many of our frequent surgery attenders are not sick. Dazzled by the utopian wel- fare benefits, freely available, they have lost self- reliance and are no longer able or willing to deal with the everyday adversities of life without the sympathy of 'doctoring.'
Records of general practice consultations, cur- rently show an average of four to five per year per patient registered. Is our nation really as 'sick' as this, or does it no longer pay to maintain our bodily machines in as good a running order as we do our motor cars? Certainly no motor insurance company who loaded the 'healthy' clients to hand out bonuses to those termed 'sick' clients in the way that the NHS does, would stay long in business.
Most of us are willing to pay for the occasional prescription charge, because illness is an occasional incident in our lives. We know the chronic sick and are willing to support them. The chronic non- sick, who occupy an 'overdose' of our time, and who have reckoned up that the cost of a popular brand of linctus, bought over the counter for 4s 2d for four ounces, will pay for nearly another twenty cigarettes, and therefore attend surgery for 'their right to it,' should pay for it.
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