Needs are never demands

BMJ 1995;310:1006 (15 April)

Letters

Needs are never demands

EDITOR,--In the first paragraph of their article in the serieson management for doctors John Stuart and colleagues refer to"the multiple demands of an increasingly aging population."¹From this single line one may guess the nature of the article.The phrase is pejorative and redolent of those ideas taken forgranted in a selfish political age. The word "demands" is usedwhen the less loaded word "needs" is more truthful; "aging"is used in a condemnatory sense when "old" is appropriate. Letme rewrite the phrase: "the needs of a people with many oldamong them." This rewritten phrase has an unusual sound to modernears, but this would not have been so to those of former ages,when language was clear, fine, and active. With one phrase rewritten,the rest of the article will also have to be rewritten, foras it stands it will no longer make . . . [Full text of this article]

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