HC Deb 25 April 1910 vol 17 cc33-4
Captain CRAIG

asked the Prime Minister whether his attention has been called to the hours worked by asylum attendants in Ireland; whether he will grant a Return showing the average hours of attendants in similar institutions in England and Scotland; whether he is aware that consumption is a very general complaint amongst lunatics, the mortality amongst whom is very heavy; that the attendants have to be shut up with the patients so afflicted for very long spells at a time, with the result that many contract consumption and die of it; whether at the present moment two of the attendants are ill with this disease in the Omagh County Asylum; and what steps he proposes to take to remedy the state of affairs at present existing?

The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Birrell)

The Prime Minister has asked me to answer this question. If the hon. and gallant Member will refer to page 25 of the Sixty-first Report of the Commissioners of Lunacy, which has been presented to Parliament, he will see that the hours of duty for attendants in county and borough asylums in England and Wales are practically the same as at Omagh Asylum. I have no information with regard to Scotland. The Inspectors of Lunatics in Ireland inform me that, so far as they are aware, there has been no general feeling amongst attendants in Irish asylums that their hours are too long. It is a fact that consumption is very prevalent amongst the insane, but it must be borne in mind that the patients affected in asylums are under constant medical supervision, and that efforts are made to keep the insane as much as possible in the open air. The inspectors do not consider that the statement that many attendants die of consumption contracted from the patients is correct. I understand two of the female attendants at Omagh Asylum are on sick leave. In one case symptoms of phthisis set in after bronchitis. It is doubtful whether the disease exists in the other case. The question of the hours and conditions of work of attendants of asylums is one for the local committees of management over whom I have no direct control in such matters.