HOSPITAL FOR TROPICAL DISEASES (Hansard, 10 June 1952)

§ Colonel J. H. Harrison (Eye)

I am very glad at this comparatively early hour to have the opportunity of drawing the attention of the House to the facilities offered to the general public of this country by our Hospital for Tropical Diseases. Unfortunately, this hospital is practically unknown and is liable to be forgotten by many of our general practitioners in country villages. It is all the more important to draw attention to it at the present time as it is just a year ago that the hospital moved into its present building in St. Pancras Way.

It is typically British that when we have a talent we hide it under a bushel. We are hiding this hospital under red tape and forms of administration. I am certain that the hospital is better known in Baghdad and Cairo than, say, in Norwich or York. The work carried out there ought to be better understood and recognised. This is particularly necessary now, when many people visit tropical countries either by their own design or as part of our military Forces overseas.

In the counties of Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire, there are, I estimate, 10,000 men who were prisoners in the Far East, and practically all of them were brought into contact with some tropical disease. There are many men who fought all the time in those countries and contracted one of the diseases. It is for these men that I am raising this subject tonight so that they 167 may know that the hospital exists and that their doctors may be reminded of its existence also.

May I recapitulate its history? It was in 1899 that Sir Patrick Manson, known in those days as the father of tropical medicine, with the full support and help of a great Colonial Secretary of State, the late Joseph Chamberlain, established a centre for the study of tropical diseases in the Seamen's Hospital Society in the Albert Docks Road—a very suitable venue because our sailors probably suffered more than anyone else from tropical diseases due to carrying our finished goods overseas and bringing back the raw materials which we needed. In addition, at this hospital there were post-graduate courses to train doctors who were going to the far parts of the world.

After 1918 the hospital moved to Endsleigh Gardens, with 77 beds. Its progress was followed in many parts of the world. Great strides continued to be made but, unfortunately, at the beginning of the Second World War the building was considered unsuitable, because of threatened enemy action, for use as a hospital. After the war the need was realised, however, and the hospital started again at 23, Devonshire Street; an old nursing home rather cramped for room.

Then we had the National Health Service Act and the hospital was moved out of the Seamen's Hospital Society Group into the University College Hospital Group with a new building in the grounds of St. Pancras Hospital in St. Pancras Way. I do not think anyone would dispute that it is wise to preserve the independent status of such a specialist hospital as this, having as it now has, 68 beds, an out-patients' clinic, a pathological theatre, laboratories and lecture rooms for post-graduate students.

I am unable to find the figures of the people who attended this hospital last year. The latest figures I have are for 1950 when, it should be remembered, the hospital was still in Devonshire Street with only 48 beds. But what do we find? This hospital was used by 30 different nationalities as wide a field as Africans, Arabs, Burmese, Chinese, Goanese, Iraqians and Russians—people who follow many and varied professions as their work in parts of the world as far apart as the Andaman Islands, British 168 North Borneo, Costa Rica, Liberia, Pakistan and Uganda.

However, although these people know of its existence and use it, in East Anglia it is practically unknown. I am not concerned so much with those men who suffered the most, who have received pensions and have been to Roehampton Hospital and have been dealt with there in the tropical section. I am concerned with those men who were discharged quickly on their return from the Far East, and with private citizens who come back from there, who are suffering and who today go to work.

We meet them in every village and when they are asked, "How are you?" they still say that they either have stomach trouble or fever or a general air of lassitude which may be due to latent defects left in them as the result of a tropical disease contracted overseas. I feel that there is failure among the local doctors to deal with these men as they should, and to get them the specialist treatment which their sufferings need.

I should like briefly to repeat to the House my own experiences, because I think they are exactly what happens to many people. I, like others, contracted one of these diseases. When I came home, I suffered from certain stomach troubles and went to my own local doctors, who was a first-rate general practitioner. He gave me the usual sort of medicines, but after four years I was no better than when I started, and so I had it out with him.

I said, "Cannot you do anything to make me better?" My doctor replied, "To be quite honest, you are chronic and nothing can be done." I am rather inquisitive and will not always accept everybody's opinion as correct, and as a result, after coming to London and ferreting about a good deal, I discovered the existence of this hospital for the treatment of tropical diseases. I got in touch with the hospital and went, first, as an out-patient. Then, during Budget week, when I thought there might not be as many Divisions in the House, I went for three or four days as a National Health in-patient.

I cannot speak too highly of the doctors and nurses and the whole administration of that hospital and of the kindnesses that I received at their hands. After they had done all their tricks with 169 me, I was fortunate enough to be found to be in the clear. But it has given me much more ease of mind in knowing that I have no traces of illnesses that I had before on the Burma road and in other places, and I feel better for knowing that. Equally, had I had any traces of illness, I had got to the right people to deal with it.

There must be many others who are still only at the stage of going to their own doctor. I have tried, but not with very much success, to interest the British Medical Association in this side of the work; but I have no doubt that if my hon. Friend could persuade her right hon. Friend to write a letter to the B.M.A., much more attention would be paid to it than to a letter from me.

Unfortunately, this country has not, perhaps, done as much for those who were prisoners in the Far East as many people would like to have seen done. Here, at practically no expense, is an opportunity for something to be done to improve the health of those people, which is even far more vital for them than to receive a few pounds.

If it is difficult for these men—and I realise that it is difficult for many of them who are still working—to come up to London, would it not be possible for one of the specialists at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases periodically—once in three or four months, perhaps—to visit such centres in East Anglia as Ipswich, Norwich and Cambridge hospitals, with a certain amount of publicity beforehand to all local doctors and the associations of the B.M.A. in those counties, saying that the specialist was coming and they could send to him to be seen, first as out-patients, any men who thought that they might still have traces of these diseases? Then, if the specialist found that there was cause for further examination, they could perhaps be admitted as in-patients into the hospital in London.

Not only should we think of those who have come back. What about those who are still in foreign parts? Can we not do something better for those who are now prisoners in Korea, some 900 men who we hope may soon be back amongst us again? Are we going to dismiss them just as abruptly out of the Army as we did the others in 1945 and 1946? If they have been in those prison camps in North Korea or China, cannot we see that for 170 a matter of three or four days they are properly tested to see whether they are suffering from such a disease and, if so, can be cured in this hospital?

In addition, there are our men fighting in Malaya and Korea. Cannot we see that anyone who contracts one of these unpleasant diseases is checked up by this hospital, which has the reputation throughout the world, as shown by the number of foreigners who come to it, of being the best in the world.

That is what I want to bring to the attention of my hon. Friend. If we do not do something for these men, then, as far as I can see, they may well be pensioners on our hands by the time they reach 50. If nothing more comes of this debate than that we are able to get some of these men into the hospital and cured; if we extend their period and expectancy of life and even, perhaps, save three or four of them from an early grave, then this debate will have been well worth while.

§ The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Patricia Hornsby-Smith)

I am very grateful to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Eye (Colonel J. H. Harrison) for the motive which has prompted him to initiate this important debate, because I know that he speaks with great sincerity on this subject and from personal experience of the same disability as that from which he seeks to save others.

I know that my hon. and gallant Friend is particularly concerned with those who, in the 18th Division, suffered great privations and hardships at the hands of the Japanese during the war. May I assure him that my Ministry are as anxious as he is that any of these men—or indeed, women, who may have served in the Far East or other places—and have succumbed to some form of tropical disease, and who may have residual symptoms of the disease, should have proper treatment. I can assure him that anything we can do to bring the facilities of the Hospital for Tropical Diseases to their attention, we are only too ready to do.

As far as war pensioners are concerned, I am authorised by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Pensions to assure my hon. and gallant Friend that he, too, is only too anxious and ready to see that the facilities which his Ministry have, and 171 which are always open to war pensioners suffering similarly, are brought to their attention.

As far as our investigations have been able to discover, we have no evidence of an unusual prevalence of tropical diseases among people in this country. If my hon. and gallant Friend has evidence of cases where there is a possibility of residual tropical infection—and I know that it is his fear that people are being overlooked and are receiving general practitioner treatment when possibly they are cases for the hospital—then I can assure him that this debate will do only good in bringing the facilities to the notice of the public.

We have taken special measures in connection with malaria. The Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health, shortly after the war, circulated all doctors, asking them to make a special point of dealing with any symptoms and any possibility of unrecognised relapses in the case of patients who might be liable to malaria. At the same time, anybody can be referred to a hospital by a local general practitioner who feels that possibly there may be some residual symptoms of tropical disease. That practitioner can refer the patient for preliminary examination as a patient to the local general hospital and, if the hospital are not satisfied and feel that there are symptoms or some form of disease which need some skilled investigation, then they, in turn, can refer that patient for full treatment or further investigation, in the case of the South of England to the Hospital for Tropical Diseases.

We recognise the special value of this hospital and we are extremely proud of its world-wide reputation. I endorse what my hon. and gallant Friend has said about the many nationalities using it and about the vast number from our own territories overseas who come to be treated in this hospital. It was always intended that it should be a consultative centre for specialised types of treatment in tropical diseases. We welcome the calling of attention to its work by my hon. and gallant Friend tonight.

Notices have also been sent to the hospital medical staffs and the senior administrative medical officers of all the regional boards drawing their attention 172 to the work of the hospital; and, indeed, they are well aware of its facilities and can refer to it patients from any of their local general hospitals.

I assure my hon. and gallant Friend that there is no difficulty about a general practitioner sending a patient direct to this hospital. In fact, half the cases directly referred to the out-patients' department and admitted, if necessary, for treatment, have come direct on a letter from their general practitioner so far as London and the southern part of England is concerned. I am pleased to say that in the case of this hospital there is a comparatively short waiting list for inpatient treatment. Anyone who fears he still has residual tropical disease can certainly consult his own doctor, and if his doctor feels that he requires additional investigation the patient can most certainly be referred to the London Hospital for Tropical Diseases.

My hon. and gallant Friend made the suggestion, in view of what he quite sincerely believes to be the greater prevalence of the disease in the areas from which members of the 18th Division were drawn, that we might possibly send to the general hospitals there consulting specialists who could deal with suspected cases of this nature. It is not quite as easy as that to send out specialists on tour, but I will certainly refer to the regional hospital board concerned and see if they have any evidence of a particular need in those areas where my hon. and gallant Friend feels there may be more cases than possibly in the rest of the country.

As my hon. and gallant Friend rightly says, the new Hospital for Tropical Diseases was opened last year, and although he referred to the old one as having been taken over, it is fair to say that the one in the old Seamen's Hospital was destroyed by enemy action and that for a time the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine had no beds available in its own particular centre. The temporary premises in Devonshire Street, where my hon. and gallant Friend stayed, were inadequate, and it was as a result of the recommendation of the Colonial Office and the Minister of Health of the day that it was proposed that the new Hospital for Tropical Diseases should be a unit of one of the great teaching hospitals.

173 It was, as a result of that decision, brought into operation subsequently under the National Health Scheme, and with the approval of both the Colonial Office and the Ministry of Health. The new wing, which at the moment is not so large a wing as we hope ultimately to see—the new Hospital for Tropical Diseases—became a block of the University College Hospital.

As my hon. and gallant Friend has said, there are 68 beds there. There is room for expansion, there is an excellent out-patients' department and very ample and adequate laboratory facilities. We recognise to the full the good work of this hospital, and I know that my hon. and gallant Friend is very anxious indeed that anyone in this country who may have some recurrence or who may still 174 have some trace of a tropical disease shall have the full benefit of these facilities.

My hon. and gallant Friend has done a good service this evening in choosing this subject for debate. I know he has done so with great sincerity and as a result of his own experience. If it enables a few more people to be found who would not otherwise have availed themselves of these facilities, I am sure that my hon. and gallant Friend will be amply repaid. Any help which we can give either in aiding cases or making known the facilities we shall be only too happy to provide.