Paying the doctor

I have been following with great interest, through the pages of the BMJ, the British medical establishment's attempts to reach solutions regarding the problems of paying for health care. When I was a junior doctor, raised, trained, and practising in the heyday of the NHS during the 1960s and early ‘70s, finance was never considered in relation to health needs and the practice of medicine was unencumbered by such mundane issues.

Then I started working in Greece and I was confronted for the first time with the need to charge for my professional services. State salaries at that time were totally inadequate, and all doctors were expected to supplement their income by private practice. This was, and continues to be for me, an endless headache. How to assess and …