HL Deb 08 February 1949 vol 160 cc624-6WA
THE EARL OF MANSFIELD

asked His Majesty's Government:

  1. (a) Whether they will state the numbers of personnel, White and African, presently employed on the East African ground-nuts project, together with details of the medical services provided for their care, including the number of doctors, nurses and orderlies, as well as the number, accommodation, and situation of the hospitals; also the average daily number of patients in those hospitals, and the total annual cost of all the medical and sanitary services connected with the ground-nuts scheme;
  2. (b) Whether they will state, to the nearest convenient date, the total number of deaths, from homicide, suicide, accident and illness that have occurred among the personnel, European and African, employed on the East African ground-nuts Scheme since its inception;
  3. (c) Whether they will state, to the nearest convenient date, the total number of cases of serious illness, or disease that have occurred among those employed on the East African groundnuts project since its inception, giving separate figures, with death rate, for such diseases as plague, malaria, black-water fever, sleeping sickness, cholera, pneumonia, dysentry, smallpox, measles, etc., and stating what severe epidemics have taken place, also which diseases, if any, are endemic among the workers; and
  4. (d) Whether they will state what precautions against disease are taken in the camps of the workers employed upon the East African ground-nuts Scheme; whether there is a maximum limit to the number of men housed in any one camp; if corrugated 625 iron huts are used in preference to mud-and-thatch ones; if trained cooks, and sanitary squads are provided in all camps, and if all water is, so far as practicable, either boiled or chlorinated.

THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON

I have informed the Overseas Food Corporation of the noble Earl's Questions, and I have invited them to reply to him direct.

House adjourned at five minutes before six o'clock.