§ 59 and 60. Mr. Hannahasked the Minister of Health (1) whether, in view of the need for safeguarding the health of their workpeople, the Albion Works at Bilston can be given an opportunity of having some members of their staff trained in the use of sun-ray lamps;
(2) what steps were taken, before refusing them permission to buy a sun-ray lamp, to find out whether the Albion Works at Bilston had anyone capable of using a sunray lamp effectively?
§ Miss HorsbrughThe manufacture of sun-ray lamps involves the use of skilled labour and materials which must be devoted, as far as possible, to armament production, and my right hon. Friend is, therefore, asked by my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade to recommend that these lamps should be supplied only where the fullest use of them is likely to be made for cases for which they are clearly required. My right hon. Friend's medical advisers inform him that ultra violet and infra red lamps ought to be used only under strict medical control. Their indiscriminate use 370 may lead to harmful results, and the question is not, therefore, one merely of having staff trained in the use of these lamps. My right hon. Friend is advised that it is important that persons submitting themselves to treatment should be under close medical supervision. It is not considered that this essential safeguard could be secured where a works doctor attends less than three times a week. Any apparatus not requiring this close medical supervision is of little value clinically. In the case of the Albion Works, two letters were submitted personally to the Ministry's officers by a director of the firm, but they did not indicate that there would be such close supervision of treatment as to satisfy my right hon. Friend's medical advisers.
§ Mr. HannahIs it suggested that the whole town of Bilston cannot supply medical knowledge of the type required?
§ Miss HorsbrughThis reply refers to the use of these lamps in a factory, and it is a question of whether it is better that it should be used only where a doctor attends at that factory at least three times a week.
§ Mr. HannahCould not arrangements be made for a doctor to attend the Albion Works four times a week?