The People's Health
1943-10 1943 1940s 36 pages DISCUSSION Councillor W. ALLAN. There requires a much greater attention to be paid by trade union branches to the prevention of some of our health troubles. On the question of sanitation. Last week in "REYNOLD'S NEWS" there was an article, whic...
| Institution: | MCR - The Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick |
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| Language: | English English |
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Newcastle-on-Tyne : North-East District Committee, Communist Party
1943
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10796/38378CFA-D7B6-4276-8380-C0919D2E600A http://hdl.handle.net/10796/A9E6CA03-6DEC-4324-BD43-AB9349736B40 |
| Summary: | 1943-10
1943
1940s
36 pages
DISCUSSION Councillor W. ALLAN. There requires a much greater attention to be paid by trade union branches to the prevention of some of our health troubles. On the question of sanitation. Last week in "REYNOLD'S NEWS" there was an article, which has created considerable interest. For the first time I have seen in print the fact that there is no normal, ordinary standard of sanitation down a pit. Under the Coal Mines Act, the employers are obliged to provide toilet facilities but there is not a single colliery in the North-East where these toilet facilities are provided. What happens is that the needs of nature are attended to in some old workings and it is there that probably a lot of the trouble starts. Every miner has to work three or four hours before his break for a snack and in that time he must handle all kinds of materials. It is considered effeminate to wear gloves and there is no chance of washing his hands before the meal. Then again, he cannot get hot tea. It seems to me that from this Conference and from the articles which are now appearing in some newspapers and in the Durham Miners' Monthly Journal, miners are entitled to take up more seriously than previously, in their lodges, the question of health in the pits. It is time to press for sanitary arrangements in the pit. Unfortunately, many miners would consider such a demand fantastic. Dermatitis is evidently a crucial thing among miners. There are reports of its prevalence from all over the country. I cannot speak on it expertly, but I do know there are general rules applying to it of which miners should be aware. It is wrong for instance to say, you cannot get compensation for this disease. You can get compensation when it is certified as an industrial disease. The trouble in the Northumberland coalfield is, that three-quarters of all cases of dermatitis going to the certifying surgeon or to the medical referee are turned down on the grounds that the cases are due to constitutional dermatitis. Yet there are cases of men who have been turned down in this way, whose families have no record of dermatitis at all. Nurse RAMSHAW. I am speaking as one of Durham County's midwives. I have worked for the London County Council during the blitz. The Rescue Squad has had to take us out to our cases. In Durham County I have had to travel twelve miles to a mother on foot. We had to have a doctor and there was no telephone in the district. We could not get a car and I had to walk nine miles. I plead with the men to go back into the trade union branches and to obtain transport for the midwives in Durham County. Then again, we have in Durham County, two schemes operating for nurses — the County Doctors' Scheme and the Queen's Nursing Scheme. They are not friendly. There is some friction between them. We are separated from each other and we are over-worked. I have had only one half-day off in a month. 15
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