Saturday 31 August 2013

Is There A Doctor In The House?





As a departure from the raging debate over Syria and the fall out in more ways than one here is an added comment on another issue that has been put to one side in the meantime.

It is the National Health Service and it arises from old memories of the location of the film clip below.  The film, "Doctor In The House" is from 1954 and it was around then when I was in digs with a couple of medical students who were at University College, London.

The opening scene is in the courtyard there that I knew well because of many visits to the student bar for various reasons unconnected with learning.

But more to the point is that it is a striking picture of the old National Helth Service we knew and loved.  This is the way it was and is never to return. Amongst other things the clip is about Telling The Time before life became digital.

Nowadays the surgeon would be obliged to wait in the queue in order to ask the Deputy Assistant Executive in the Spatial and Throughput Management Division of the hospital management to find out where his patients were and if they were still alive.

That is if the computer hardware hadn't broken down or the software glitches had been dealt with.  At least the relationships with the patients were a lot better in 1954.

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