Private Patients
SIR,—Attention has been called at the meeting of the B.M.A. to the penalising of private patienti by making them pay for their medicines. This is stupid as well as obviously unjust, as the expense to the State is lessened by every person who pays for his doctor's services, instead of getting the State to do so. An equally flagrant injustice is the refusal to allow a hospital patient who has a private room the benefit of the " free" service. Many a delicate or elderly person shrinks from the noise and draughtiness of the public ward; but, if he wants a private room, not only the charge for it, but the fees which he has to pay to doctor, surgeon or anaesthetist, are much larger than they were before the introduction of the National Health Service.—Yours faithfully,
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