§ Mr. ThorpeI beg leave to present a Petition signed by 53,000 people in the North Devon area drawn from the North Devon division and parts of the Torrington and Tavistock constituencies relating to the need for a new hospital.
The Petition shows that there are 1,000 people at present on the waiting list for admission to the hospital, that the building in question is 138 years old and is inadequate to meet those needs and that in the second revision to the hospital building scheme published in May this year the proposal was that the new hospital building programme should be postponed by three years so that the new building date would be in 1971.
This postponement, in the view of the petitioners, has placed an intolerable burden on the medical and nursing staffs concerned and on general practitioners and will cause grave hardship to the general public.
The purpose of this Petition is to pray that the date for the commencement of the new hospital building scheme should be reinstated to the year 1968 and that the existing cottage hospitals should be retained for auxiliary services.
The Petition represents the united feeling of the people living in this area. It is a rural area of some 800 sq. miles and 53,000 names have been collected 1296 in a period of eight days. Some have been obtained by people travelling across Exmoor on horseback, and even the inhabitants of the Island of Lundy have appended their names to the Petition.
The Minister has indicated that he is reconsidering all the plans for hospital building, and the object of this Petition is, first, to show him how passionately the people of this part of the world want a new hospital so that people will not have to wait upward of 5½ years for surgical treatment and, secondly, it is hoped that he will give hope to those who are sick and encouragement to the medical profession which is having to carry on in intolerable conditions.
Therefore, I beg leave, with the hon. Member for Torrington (Mr. Peter Mills). to present this Petition on behalf of these 53,000 people and hope that the prayer in the Petition will be acceded to by the Minister at the earliest possible moment.
§ To lie upon the Table.