HC Deb 22 February 1900 vol 79 cc786-7
SIR WALTER FOSTER

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War if the number of nursing orderlies employed in field and general hospitals in South Africa is only one orderly for every seven patients, and if, in the interests of efficiency, it can be increased to one for five patients.

* MR. WYNDHAM

The proportion of orderlies to beds is as stated—one to seven—and the Secretary of State is advised that that is sufficient. In a field hospital the bearer company can supply additional orderlies as soon as an action is over; and as patients are always transferred as soon as possible to the base hospital the beds are rarely all full. In a general hospital many of the cases are always slight, and there is a regular staff of nursing sisters.