HC Deb 28 April 1863 vol 170 cc857-8
MR. BAZLEY

said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for India, When the Medical Officers of Her Majesty's Indian Army will be placed upon a perfect footing of equality with the Medical Officers of Her Majesty's British Army, and the reason why the important paragraphs in the Royal Warrant of October 1858, which regulates the substantive pay of British Army Surgeons, and insures to them all the advantages and precedence attaching to their rank, and regulates quarters, rates of lodging money, forage, sick, and retiring allowances, and many; other substantial advantages, have been omitted in the Indian Army Medical, Warrant of January 1860; and the reason why Indian Army Medical Officers of ten and fifteen, and in the Madras Army of eighteen years' service in the Tropics, only receive a Subaltern's allowance of six shillings and sixpence per diem when on; sick leave, or about £100 a year, and are expected to provide themselves with a return passage to India, when Medical Officers of the British Army receive, under similar circumstances when on sick leave, more than double and treble the above sum, and are furnished with a Government passage when rejoining their corps in any part of Her Majesty's dominions; and when these distinctions will be remedied?

SIR CHARLES WOOD

said, in answer to the Question of his hon. Friend, that he could only say that the Warrant of 1860 did not profess, and was not intended, to make the position of the Medical Officers of the two Services perfectly identical. Their position was different in many respects; but what was done in 1860 was to place the Medical Officers of Her Majesty's Indian Army on as improved a footing as possible, though still differing in some respects from that of the Medical Officers of the British army. The whole medical establishment of the Indian army was under consideration at this moment. He had mentioned, on a former occasion, that some difference of opinion prevailed on the subject in India, and a scheme was sent home, which he had approved, with the general assent of the Medical Commission in this country, but it had not yet received the sanction of the Secretary of State for War.

Back to