RENTED HOSPITAL BEDS

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27470, 2 October 1954, Page 7

RENTED HOSPITAL BEDS

Pledge By Labour Party (Hee. 11 p.m.) LONDON, Sept. 30. Next time Britain has a Labour Government not even a sick millionaire will be able to rent himself a bed in a hospital. A pledge was given at the Labour Party conference at Scarborough today that hospital beds which can be paid for will be abolished. Rich and <>oor alike will queue on an equal status for free beds. Miss Margaret Herbison, a member of Parliament, announced this decision when she replied for the National Executive Committee to the conference debate on health services. . Miss Herbison said: “We believe that jumping a queue in anything is wrong. But jumping a queue where sickness is concerned goes against all the best instincts of decent people.” British hospitals have about 54.000 beds for treatment of the chronic sick, but there is a waiting list o. 9000 patients. The number of beds reserved for paying patients is slightly more than 6100 at. a cost of between £lO and £25 a week, depending on the type of hospital. The conference, which ends tomorrow, dealt quietly today with a wide range of domestic topics. The conference unanimously expressed concern at the falling number of British farm workers—estimated at 90,000 in six years. It criticised the Government’s policy on agricultural workers’ wages and called for an investigation of the marketing system.