Venereal Disease (Compulsory Treatment)

Part of Emergency Powers (Defence) – in the House of Commons at on 15 December 1942.

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Photo of Dr Leslie Haden-Guest Dr Leslie Haden-Guest , Islington North

The Noble Lady has spoken with great sincerity, but I am sorry I shall not be able to follow her. I shall even hope to convince her to some extent by the arguments I shall adduce in favour of bringing this Regulation into operation. I am speaking partly as a result of my experience during the present war as one of the administrative medical officers of the headquarters staff of one of the largest—at one time the largest—commands in this country. I was there for 15 months. From the Service point of view, I know what the problem is. Some hon. Members who have spoken to-day have been so concerned with the admirable objectives which they wish to realise and with the excellent ideals which they wish to see put into practice that they have not addressed themselves sufficiently to the concrete and definite problem which lies before medical administrators and before the country.

We had a little time ago an admirable speech, if I may be permitted to say so, from the hon. Member for St. Albans (Sir F. Fremantle). His experience as a medical officer of health gives him great authority in this respect, and his reputation as one of the most distinguished of medical officers of health lends added weight to his words. He knows this problem. He has served on committees surveying this problem, and gives it as his considered judgment that this Regulation is one which will advantage the country at the present time. I agree with him, and I agree with the hon. and gallant Member for Kingston-on-Thames (Sir P. Royds), that it is a most important thing from the Services point of view that this Regulation shall be put into operation. With much of what the hon. Lady the Member for Springburn (Mrs. Hardie) said I very heartily agree. With her deep humanitarian sympathies, with her approach to this matter from the standpoint of education, and the improvement and lifting-up of the moral level I entirely agree. But there is, apart from that, this definite problem of the young men and the young women in the Services and those outside the Services, most of them, of course, shortly to be called up, and subjected to conditions which, under existing conditions, make it probable there will be a great spread of venereal disease.

May I say one other thing in connection with the matter of this Regulation? This is only part of an offensive which has been launched by the Minister of Health, and I have no hesitation in describing myself in this matter as one of his most cordial supporters. This is only a part of an offensive against venereal diseases of which publicity in the Press and publicity through the B.B.C. are important parts. I wonder whether Members realise what a lot of work has actually been done in order to get this publicity in the Press—and admirable work the Press has done in recent months—and whether hon. Members realise the consultations and the considerations and the weighing of this and the weighing of that which had to come before a perfectly frank and free public health discussion of this matter by the B.B.C.—a most important weapon of information to the public in this country—could be got? This whole subject has been too much wrapped up in fear and in mystery. It is a matter which primarily must be approached from the moral point of view. It is a question which will never be solved until the human race has been raised to a considerably higher level than it has reached at the present time.

But there is the public health aspect of the matter, and I think it is of benefit that we should consider the matter from the public health point of view. What is the case with regard to this? I am glad to see that my hon. Friend the Member for West Fulham (Dr. Summerskill) is now in her place. What is the case with regard to the increase of the venereal diseases, gonorrhea and syphilis, during this present war? There has been an increase, of course, among the civilian population. The hon. Lady gave the figures. There has also been a considerable increase among two groups; one, the Services—the Army, the Air Force and the Navy; another among the Mercantile Marine, who are, of course, civilians and who therefore come, or should come, into the civilian figures. I know what these Services figures are, but they cannot be given at the present time. But do let me impress on the House that all this talk about the value of notification and even the value of treatment, unless it is directed to the source of infection, is not in itself a complete cure. In the Services there are compulsory notification and compulsory treatment, and it is in the Services that there is this tremendous rise in venereal infection. Compulsory notification and treatment are by no means a complete cure.

It is perfectly true that a great increase in treatment facilities is required. I interpolated a question when the hon. Member for West Fulham was speaking and asked her what number of clinics we should require. She seemed to think that that interpolation was irrelevant. I am afraid that, if anything, it was a little malicious. I wanted to get her to say what she did say, that we would need to have clinics set up in this country at the rate of one for every 20,000 of the population, as in Sweden. If hon. Members will make a little elementary calculation, they will see that means we require to multiply the present number of clinics by something more than 10 when it is difficult to add to them 10, or 20, or 30 more clinics, because however urgently they are needed the medical man-power, the almoner woman-power and nursing power, are not available at the present time, for the reasons given by the hon. Member for St. Albans. I have been pleading myself in another matter for the appointment of numbers of pensions appeal tribunals of some 25 doctors. The Minister has stonewalled every time and said that he cannot provide these 25 people. I still do not agree with him, but when it comes to the question of whether we can provide 1,000 or even 100 more doctors to specialise on a particular subject at the present time, it is asking for something which I will not say is impossible, because I do not believe it impossible, and I do not believe that my profession, the medical profession, would fail to respond somehow to any call which the Government thought was essential, but there are limits to what any group of people can do.

There has been a very great increase in venereal disease among members of the Services, and I have heard in this House to-day—and I have only been absent from the discussion for a few moments, which I regret to say was when the Noble Lady the Member for Plymouth (Viscountess Astor) began her speech just now—no statement which, as it were, seems to put into words the conditions under which our men and our women are serving at the present time, the conditions of strain, the conditions of pressure—moral, spiritual and physical pressure—under which they are living. The only film and the only play I have seen within a long period have dealt with conditions in the Services. The play was "Flare Path"; the other was a film, which I saw only the other night, the Noel Coward film, "In Which we Serve." Those two, the play and the film, give a wonderful representation of the tremendous strain on our men and women in the Services. In statistical terms it is shown that venereal diseases are most prevalent in young people from 19 to 23. That is the age of our young people in the Services. That is the age of the men who any night get the order to take off and fly over Germany or over Italy. Every man of them is glad to go, glad to be of service to his country, full of enthusiasm for his job, but he knows well that he may not come back. Every man who goes out in the Navy and in the Mercantile Marine, that great service of which we can never say too much, knows he may never come back. Those are not normal circumstances. That is a strain, placed on men and on the women who are supporting those men in the Services, which is difficult for those living in civilian surroundings, however much blitzed they are, to realise. If this Regulation 33B will help, as I believe it will, to protect those men against the dangers of venereal infection, it is the duty of this House to put it into operation.