The Paris Patrol

Paris has plenty of doctors--during daylight hours. From 8 in the evening until 8 the next morning, the doctors insist on their privacy; medical help becomes harder to find than a polite cab driver. To Parisians the scarcity has sometimes meant long hours of pain, or even death.

It is the kind of situation that the medical profession might be expected to remedy, and an enterprising young French doctor finally decided to do just that. Impressed when he got near-instant service one night from a radio-dispatched plumber, he wondered why pipes should be better cared for than patients. His answer: radio-dispatched doctors as part of the "S O S" service that already was providing Paris with plumbers and other fix-it aid in response to phone calls.

In the first three weeks, an average of 20 emergencies a night have been handled by the five doctors on patrol, and the public loudly approves the new setup. Other Parisian doctors are as delighted as the emergency patients. The SOS service allows them to choose to stay home even if a personal patient is stricken.

There is no danger to their practice since SOS doctors are forbid den to see the patient in daylight hours. Instead, they charge a flat $10 per call plus the cost of medicine, then write a letter to the patient's regular doctor the next morning, informing him of the treatment given. It is all working so well that a group of Rome doctors has already arrived in Paris to study the procedure.

The only ones to find any fault at all are the medical societies. Since S O S is an advertised service, the societies claim that the doctors involved are practicing medicine commercially. The doctors respond that they are treating patients who otherwise are ignored. As for the commercialism charge, the SOS doctors are trying to sidestep it by keeping their names secret.

Public and press are outspokenly on their side, and last week the prestigious French Conseil de L'Ordre Na tional des Medecins was showing signs of bending to popular pressure. Though the Conseil had first threatened to block the whole operation, it now seems willing to give the SOS doctors official sanction as a registered group. To pleased Parisians, that meant that emergency night medical aid would remain just a phone call away.

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