From Paul Troalic.
I’M sure a great many people were pleased to see that the fees charged by doctors and dentists are at last under the microscope following a report that high costs were identified as a major factor as to why people are reluctant to attend these services.

Their charges, along with lawyers’ fees, bank charges and car servicing charges, must rate as the rip off of the century in Jersey at least.

I can remember many years ago when I worked under the British Post Office, where we employees benefited from having our doctors’ and dentists’ fees paid as part of our salary package, that charges were always relatively high.

As I remember the fees were based on a scale of charges ranging from reasonable to high. Curiously all the Jersey dentists I experienced consistently charged fees at the top of the scale. Whether these charges were justified or were because they saw these as a good source of guaranteed income for their practices was debatable.

Those who were responsible for sanctioning the payments often queried the high levels of payments to certain dentists but inevitably the amounts were paid as ‘justified’.

Many of my friends who did not benefit from schemes such as mine paid much lower fees.

On a separate matter I recently went to the doctor and noticed the scale of charges posted for all to see. I was surprised to see that fees are based on an average 10 minutes’ consultancy.

A quick check on my calculator revealed that if you multiply the doctor’s fee (currently £27) by 6 patients per hour this reveals an amount of £162 per hour which equates to £6,318 per week for a 39-hour working week, and £328,536 per annum. Not bad money when you think about it and that’s just for one doctor in the practice.

Clearly they will argue that they do not always see six patients in every hour but it does not put the matter of fees into perspective. And of course they are receiving additional money from the States on top of the subsidised fees the patients pay.

Now if you compare this hourly rate with the perceived, extortionate rates we are charged by the larger garages that form a cartel in this Island, then their fees of between £70 and £100 per hour don’t seem at all unreasonable.

And look at the hi-tech equipment garages are forced to buy and install compared with dentists and doctors and the stands that must be maintained. If your filling falls out it hurts no-one but yourself; not so if your wheel falls off your car.

The whole point of this accounting exercise is to show that doctors, dentists, etc, are all earning a good screw and, the fact that a good proportion of people cannot afford to go to the doctor and even fewer go to the dentist unless it is really necessary, is an appalling state of affairs in this Island where the welfare of each individual is supposed to be of paramount importance.

Regrettably everything boils down to cost and more importantly priorities. You can put off going for a periodic check-up to the dentist or doctor or even delay having your car serviced, but you can’t stop buying food or paying your rent or mortgage.

We will all watch the proposed review with interest. Nothing will of course change and fees will certainly not be reduced, but a few home truths will come to light I’m quite sure.

Roll on the investigation into lawyers’ charges; that will be really interesting.