Dial "H" FOR HOMICIDE

I grew up during World War II and developed a completely different view of the world from that which applies in most parts of the world nowadays. I was also an inhabitant of Australia, which was a completely different country from today. We had an anglo-saxon population of 5 million people and an uncounted population of original inhabitants, somewhere about 300,000, but it could have been considerably more. Such was the arrogance of our ancestors that they didn't matter. To my mind that was far from the truth. I marveled at the duration of their habitation of Australia and their knowledge of the land, their methods of controlled burning of the scrub to limit the effect of bushfires, their nomadic culture which enabled the finding of food without depleting resources during hard times and many other aspects of their being. During those early years we went ahead with European values. Monday mornings at school involved taking the oath to serve the Queen and salute the flag of Australia. We developed the attitude of helping others and the motto of the Cubs and Boy Scouts, to which I belonged, was to do a good deed every day. Those values have remained very much part of my being and cause me great difficulty in understanding the extremely selfish and self-centered attitudes of the modern medical community and bureaucracy. Our advances since my early days resulted from sustained effort and enterprise, much more humble dwellings which did not repeatedly break one's financial resources and did not tie parents into a sustained and prolonged grand-parenthood to sustain their progeny in modern luxury.

With those considerations in mind I found the opinions expressed by medical practitioners and bureaucrats in this small book about one of our number who did everything possible for her to follow the rules of conduct and reasonable behaviour beyond belief. I am willing to wager that none of those referred to will contact me to apologize or admit wrong behaviour, but they will hide behind their anonymity to escape persecution. Thank God we didn't have any of them around when we were involved in World War II or developing the nation in the way those of my generation, and our forebears, have done to date.