SIR,—Recent correspondents are scarcely fair to the medical profession. The
claim that there is much waiting at hospitals is true. It is also true that occasionally it is attributable to a doctor's unpunctuality, but this, 1 believe, is a comparatively rare and unimportant cause. It is, I believe, never due to any "conscious condescension," as the doctor is interested, not in differences of income or social position, but only
of disordered function. He is, on the contrary, often embarrassed in his work by patients who, conscious of their greater importance, expect and even demand, privileges.
The fact that appointments systems, both at hospitals and in general practice, have not solved the problem is due to many causes—unpunc- tuality of patients, the varying length of time needed by different cases, the need to make time for several more patients at a session because of their immediate urgency, the duty of the doctor to abandon his routine session temporarily to deal with some emergency elsewhere. A great increase in the number of doctors would alone be effective, an increase which is impracticable owing to its cost. Considerable improve- ment would result from more intelligent use of the health service by patients themselves, who, as a whole, have become • more and more unwilling to accept personal responsibility in this as in other aspects of existence.—Yours faithfully,
Previous page
