SIR,—On page four of your issue of July 1, 1955,
your Irish correspondent criticises the attitude of the Northern Ireland Government with regard to the Roman Catholic Mater Hospital and its participation in the Health Service.
Mr, Chuter Ede is stated to have given an undertaking on this subject. May I inform your correspondent that the Government's attitude has been made perfectly clear from the outset. On November 19, 1947, on the com- mittee stage of the Health Services Bill, the then Minister of Health stated (Hansard, November 19, 1947, para. 2775): The hospitals can come in, and we will welcome them in; but if they want to stop out they are not going to stop out on any instalment system. They will stop out altogether. I want to make it quite clear on behalf of the Government that if they do not come into the scheme 100 per cent. they do not come in under the financial provisions of the Bill.
The Mater Hospital decided, and had the right to decide, to opt out from the Health Service. It was perfectly within its rights in so doing, but it is scarcely reasonable for your correspondent to blar the Ulster Govern- ment for such a decision.—Yours faithfully, W. DOUGLAS Unionist Headquarters, 3 Glengall Street, Belfast [Our Irish Correspondent writes :
Mr. Douglas prudently does not reveal that 'the then Minister of Health' was Mr. Aneurin Bevan; for the Unionist Party headquarters to rely on Mr. Bevan in an entertaining example of the scriptures quoting the devil for their own purposes. But the choice of quotation is inept. What Mr. Bevan said on the committee stage of the Bill was authoritarian wishful- thinking : his '100 per cent. in or 100 per cent. out' has not been adhered to—much to his fury.]
Previous page
