HC Deb 30 November 1955 vol 546 cc2307-9

The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:

127. Mr. Woodburn

To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he will make a statement about the future of the arrangements for sending Scottish tuberculous patients to Swiss sanatoria.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. James Stuart)

With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I shall now reply to Question No. 127.

In March this year it was announced that the scale of the Swiss sanatorium scheme was to be reduced by the termination of our arrangements with the Sanatorium Wolfgang at Davos, which left us with 120 beds at the Sanatorium du Mont Blanc at Leysin. At that time the Scottish waiting list for hospital treatment for respiratory tuberculosis stood at about 500, after having fallen from about 2,000 over a period of twelve months.

I am glad to say this welcome trend has continued; the number waiting is now about 180, most of whom are waiting so as to get into sanatoria near their homes. At the same time, there has been a considerable increase in the number of unoccupied staffed beds for respiratory tuberculosis above a normal working margin. Of 6,049 staffed beds at 30th September, 856 were unoccupied, 401 of these being in the Western Region.

The 120 beds retained at the Sanatorium du Mont Blanc have been used for patients from Glasgow, Renfrewshire, Dunbartonshire and Stirlingshire. The chest physicians in these areas now report that they are able to offer beds in Scotland to all their tuberculous patients who require hospital treatment. It is, therefore, clear that we can now decide, without prejudice to the treatment of Scottish patients, to bring our Swiss arrangements to an end and this decision is being conveyed to the authorities of the Mont Blanc Sanatorium. We intend that the patients now in that sanatorium should be able to remain there as long as their medical treatment requires.

Our thanks, and the thanks of Scottish patients, are due to the authorities of the Swiss sanatoria, to the Scottish branch of the British Red Cross Society for its welfare work, and to those others both in this country and in Switzerland who have helped to make this scheme a success. Since the scheme began in June, 1951, 1,043 patients have gone to Switzerland; this has been of material assistance to us at a time when our resources in Scotland were insufficient to cope with the need.

Mr. Woodburn

May I extend the thanks of my hon. Friends and myself to the Swiss authorities for having helped my late right hon. Friend Hector McNeil in this scheme for dealing with this scourge in Scotland?

May I have an assurance from the Secretary of State that, in the event of any patients in Scotland requiring any special treatment in Switzerland, in spite of the fact that there are beds in Scotland, these facilities in Switzerland will be utilised it necessary, and that the right hon. Gentleman's statement will not necessarily mean that this valuable connection will be finally dropped?

Mr. Stuart

I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that this scheme would not have been dropped had the need for it continued. I am assured on the best medical advice that these cases can be dealt with just as satisfactorily in Scotland as they could be in Switzerland.

Mr. Royle

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the long statement that we have just had—and I am quite sure that it is very important to Scottish people who are suffering from tuberculosis—may I presume that if I put down a similar Question on behalf of tuberculous patients in Lancashire, I shall have a reply of that length from the Minister of Health?

Mr. Speaker

The hon. Member had better try it and see what his fortunes are.

Mr. Rankin

Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it not the case that today some of the Foreign Secretary's replies were just as long?

Hon. Members

They were longer.