THE DOCTOR'S PAY
Six,—Your article under this heading by Dr. Kitching is timely and interesting. To bring the subject " down to brass tacks," under the present panel system it is agreed that each item of doctoring is paid for at an average rate of 2s: For a man earning £1,5oo gross—and the expenses may range from £5oo in the country to £400 in a town— this means the doctor has to give 15,000 "items." Allowing him fifteen whole days off, and thirty half-days, probably Sundays and Wednesdays, he is left with 335 days' work, which means that he must attend to more than forty-four patients per day. The " items " may consist of anything from the diagnosis and treatment of an acute pneumonia or some desperate abdominal case, requiring arrangements for admission to hospital, to a toothache or a foreign body in the eye.
Every young doctor starts out in practice well equipped with knowledge and keen to put it into practice, but when he Ends himself forced to undertake work at this rate, can we wonder that be is compelled to make the quicker diagnosis and the hopeful treatment which alone will allow him to keep up the pace. In my opinion the doctor is not properly paid, and if we ever get the medical service which the Beveridge Report envisages it will first be necessary to see that the doctor is properly paid, so that a greatly increased number may be induced to take up that fascinating but overdriven profession.—Yours, &c.,
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