population.

While the Government and the community deals with the spectre of ballooning pension payments and the need for increased nursing care for the aged and infirm, the case of Dr. Bert McPhee and others like him present a completely different but equally knotty problem.

Last week, Dr. McPhee went public with the fact that at the age of 70, he had been made to retire from his job at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital and had lost the right to admit patients to the hospital.

By all accounts, Dr. McPhee remains fit and mentally alert and quite capable of carrying on his duties. Judging from letters sent to this newspaper, his patients like and respect him and wish to continue to be treated by him. While that is not impossible now, he is hampered by the fact that he has no hospital privileges.

His supporters also say that it is nonsensical to make a fit and able Bermudian retire when he has to be replaced by a non-Bermudian.

The hospital, noting that mandatory retirement ages are commonplace, argues that it has done nothing wrong; indeed, to its credit, it extended Dr.

McPhee's retirement by five years. At the time, most doctors had to retire on their 65th birthday although it has now been moved to 70. The hospital has also indicated that Dr. McPhee will be able to continue to see patients, only now he will have to have another physician's agreement before referring them to the hospital.

But Dr. McPhee points out that being "70 today is not the same as being 70 in 1960''. Advances in medicine and healthier lifestyles mean that people age more slowly than they used to and are capable of leading full and active lives into their 70s and 80s.

On an Island which is already dependent on imported labour for a large segment of its workforce, it makes little sense to force able bodied Bermudians to go into an enforced retirement when they wish to carry on working -- and may feel that their lives depend on it.

But that doesn't mean that they do not age at all and often they will convince themselves that they are performing as well as they did when they were 40.

More objective people may disagree.

In the medical field, this problem is especially troubling; does a hospital or medical authority take a physician's word for his or her good health and wait until a possibly life-threatening mistake is made before forcing retirement? Or does it avoid the risk and set a mandatory retirement age even though physicians are capable of working beyond that age and have patients who want to continue to see them? It might make sense for the hospital to consider retirement on a case by case basis and require physicians over the age of 60 or 65 who wish to continue to practise to be recertified every one or two years. If they fail to meet the standards required of them, then they should be told it is time to go.