Unacceptable waiting lists

Many readers including those medically qualified must wonder why The Times decided to pick on The Benefits Of Medical Audit for its leader (April 26) when it had recently reported an audit study by A. Vincenti Kind and others, on Screening for Cancer of the Cervix in Malta, where such benefits are evident. It would seem that proclaiming the benefits of medical audit is an empty exercise like shouting the obvious from a rooftop.

The concept and practice of medical audit is not foreign or novel to our doctors and our public medical service. As elsewhere throughout the world, the medical profession is engaged in a continuous process of self assessment and self criticism as evidenced in the incessant and massive flow of review papers in the medical periodicals and other literature. So The Times is not quite fair when it suggests that the medical profession fears change. In fact, the opposite is nearer the truth. So eager is medical practice to keep pace with the momentum of scientific medical research that important and costly public bodies like the Medical Research Council in the UK and the Food and Drugs Administration in the US act as public watchdogs to see that innovative therapies are not introduced that have not been scientifically tested.

What I consider of more serious public concern are the statistics tabled by the Minister of Health (April 27) in reply to a parliamentary question put by none other than the shadow minister for foreign affairs on the problem of waiting lists for operations at St Luke's Hospital. To have over 6,500 persons waiting for an operation in the Orthopaedic Department and over 3,500 waiting for an operation, with a waiting time of two-and-a-half years, in the Ophthalmology Department, is just disgraceful and unacceptable.

This is the matter that deserves editorial treatment, not the obvious benefits of medical audit.