HC Deb 07 December 1950 vol 482 cc520-2
43. Mr. Mott-Radclyffe

asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware of the serious lack of adequate facilities for the emergency treatment of women tuberculosis cases in the Maidenhead area; and what steps he proposes to take to remedy this situation.

Mr. Bevan

It is hoped to open a new ward at Taplow in the new year, for women patients suffering from tuberculosis. The local chest physician can at present nominate a number of such patients for admission to Pinewood Sanatorium, and others can be admitted elsewhere in the region, in their turn.

Mr. Mott-Radclyffe

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, except for the one ward in the Taplow Hospital which is now available for male tuberculosis cases, there are no facilities for the emergency treatment of women? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this complete lack of adequate facilities is causing very great anxiety to many relatives in that area?

Mr. Bevan

The absence of accommodation in the hospitals is causing great anxiety to all of us. All I can say is that we are adding to the number of nurses day by day.

Mr. Gerald Williams

Would the right hon. Gentleman not consider sending these women to Switzerland, where ample nursing accommodation is available?

Mr. Bevan

Hon. Members opposite are always making general allegations about expenditure upon the National Health Service, and yet are always asking for more money to be spent.

Mr. Nally

So that the House may properly understand the facts in this matter, will my right hon. Friend circulate in HANSARD a precise picture of the tuberculosis facilities that existed not only in Maidenhead but in the county exactly 11 years ago?

Mr. Bevan

I have made a number of statements about tuberculosis facilities, and I always ask the House and the country to understand that the larger number of cases notified at the moment is not evidence of retrogression but of progression. We are discovering them earlier, and the fatalities are being reduced.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot

Surely the Minister will agree that the situation is very distressing indeed, that there is a shortage of accommodation, and that accommodation in Switzerland exists and should be used?

Mr. Bevan

There is nothing more distressing than the fact that the incidence of tuberculosis was not discovered earlier.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot

rose—

Mr. Speaker

I must point out that the original Question dealt with Maidenhead only and not with the whole country.

Lieut.-Colonel Elliot

On a point of order. Are not questions whether the shortage of accommodation in Maidenhead could be reduced by using the accommodation in Switzerland germane to the subject?

Mr. Speaker

I should have thought that they were quite outside it.