Orders of the Day — Discharged Soldiers (Hospital Treatment)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 31 May 1945.

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Dr. Morģan:

No, Sir; but you allowed the hon. Gentleman to make an accusation against me of having made a grave allegation against the medical profession. He is constantly doing that sort of thing. I resented the implication. When he says that I am making charges against the medical profession he does not know what he is talking about. The Financial Secretary to the War Office was very considerate in his reply, and made a welcome concession, and he ought to be congratulated upon it. I would ask him to see whether medical boards dealing with all classes of cases could not be taken out of the purview of the Departments, and made independent bodies. It is not that men do not want to come to a correct decision. They do, but a stage is reached when the patient wants to know exactly where he is and some decision of some kind should be made. When discharged from hospital a man will want to know how he is to manage in civil life. The whole question, from the point of view of the medical profession, should be reviewed. These boards should not be composed of men employed by the Department, but of men who are absolutely apart from it. I have followed this subject for a long time, and I have seen pathetic cases. The decisions have been quite legitimately wrong, due perhaps to the difficulties of the case, the recurrence of symptoms, and the difficulty of knowing whether the disease is really constitutional or not.

It is because of the extreme difficulties in these cases, on which the future of the men so much depends, that I hope that the War Office, having made a concession to-day, will go a little further and deal with the question of rehabilitation. I wish the War Office would give some consideration to the way in which such cases are handled by the Air Ministry. However, I want to congratulate the hon. Gentleman on the very fine concession he has made, and hope that it will be a stepping stone to something better later on.