Breaking bread together

To the Editor: I congratulate you on your column in the 1 November 2004 issue.1 For years, I have stated that it is a problem, not only in the public hospitals, but now creeping into the private hospitals, that there is no private room available for doctors to talk among themselves. This also includes the theatres, where only one room is available for both nurses and doctors, and I think this is a giant mistake.

I remember that when I was a young doctor, consultations were arranged over lunch. Doctors talked to each other and everyone knew about the important cases in the hospital. It was a teaching and learning experience. In addition, in the afternoon, after one had finished work and was relaxing over the newspaper, again there was contact between doctors.

At St Margaret’s Hospital, where I was the Medical Superintendent for fourteen-and-a-half years, between 1969 and 1984, I fought until the day I left to maintain these rooms. The dining room was lost, but at least there was a room where doctors could gather after they did their morning ward rounds. There was an enormous amount of work done and many opinions proffered in that room, and to this day many doctors tell me how much they miss that experience in the hospital they now attend.

Isn’t there someone who can point out that, although the public health system is a shambles at present, we should not allow the private system to go down the same track? Sadly, it appears to be doing just that.