DURING the Cold War, plans were quietly made for how the NHS would operate after a nuclear attack. Many doctors spoke out against them, arguing they were futile, ridiculous, or perhaps even dangerous as they fostered the idea that nuclear war was survivable instead of unthinkable.

SCOTLAND’S PLANS FOR HOSPITALS

IN 1964, Scottish health boards were instructed to assess bed capacity, and nearby buildings such as schools and community halls were earmarked as additional hospital space. Documents in Scotland’s National Archives show the injured of Aberdeen might have found themselves being treated on the floor of the Gaiety Restaurant or Donald’s Ballroom. Conditions in these makeshift hospitals would be “primitive in the extreme”.

In 1985, the Scottish Office Manual of Emergency Measures outlined plans to clear target-area hospitals of non-emergency patients and to evacuate the remainder, plus staff and equipment, to a safer area where beds would be “crowded up” and tented annexes assembled.

To enable these hospital evacuations to take place, the planners counted how many ambulances and lorries they’d need and ice-cream vans were suggested as refrigerated transport for medicines.

It was estimated that the number of bandages for the injured population of Edinburgh alone would require a train two miles long. This hopeless carnival of ambulances, lorries and ice-cream vans would be choking the roads, fighting for space with military vehicles and the population who would be trying to flee the cities.

As for those who didn’t survive, Scottish Office staff posed for photographs with “collapsible coffins” designed to make mass burials easier.

RESPONSE FROM THE MEDICAL PROFESSION

THE plans provoked a ferocious response from the medical profession. A 1981 article in The Lancet said: “Prevention of nuclear war offers the only possibility of protecting people from its medical consequences.”

In 1983, the BMA published a report called The Medical Effects Of Nuclear War which said the NHS could not cope with one nuclear bomb, let alone a full nuclear exchange. “The provision of individual medical or nursing attention for victims of a nuclear attack would become remote.

“At some point it would disappear completely and only the most primitive first aid services might be available from a fellow survivor.”

In the same year, The Royal College of Nursing issued a report saying government plans for the NHS were “totally inadequate” and made the uncomfortable point that nurses are not angels, but ordinary people who are just as likely to be killed or injured as the general population. The report added: “It would be quite unrealistic to expect nurses to behave differently from other survivors or to do any more than shelter with their families.”

And without equipment and drugs, there would be little a nurse could do other than offer instruction in hygiene and “the relief of suffering by any available means”.

WHAT ABOUT SCOTTISH DOCTORS?

IN 1980, a group of doctors formed the Medical Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons (MCANW) to help prevent nuclear war by raising awareness about its hideous medical effects.

The MCANW’s Edinburgh branch was at the forefront of anti-nuclear campaigning in Scotland. One of its prominent activists was Dr Helen Zealley, formerly a public health consultant for Lothian. She was keen to use her expertise to inform the public what “The Bomb” would mean for their own health and survival.

“That was our main focus,” she says. “We believe that the public, when they understand, will agree that nuclear war is totally wrong and will vote for politicians who ensure it never happens.”

Zealley recalls the frantic over-reaction from the authorities when she attended the branch’s opening meeting. It was a gathering of law-abiding doctors yet the police were in attendance: “They seemed to think we were about to launch a revolution instead of having a straightforward educational meeting.

“It totally baffled us as we were simply having a meeting about the risk of a nuclear attack on Lothian. In retrospect, I guess we should have been quite pleased that ‘they’, the Establishment, were worried about us.”

Scottish GP Dr Judith McDonald’s anti-nuclear work had taken her to Hiroshima. She also felt a responsibility to use her medical knowledge to spread awareness of the horrors of nuclear war “so that those in positions of power are aware of the potential consequences of the decisions they are making. One of our campaigning phrases was Prevention Is Better as there is no cure for the humanitarian catastrophe of nuclear war.”

Both cite veteran Australian campaigner Dr Helen Caldicott as their inspiration. She visited Scotland in October 1980 to give anti-nuclear lectures and spoke to a huge public meeting at the Edinburgh Playhouse.

Caldicott told The National the nuclear threat has not decreased with the end of the Cold War. Tensions are rising again and the possibility of accidents never recedes, she said, adding “There are more than 1,000 hackers in the Pentagon computer systems every day and it is only a matter of time, according experts, before a smart kid could actually initiate a launch.”

And what of those plans to treat patients in ballrooms and restaurants? “Absolutely comical,” she says. “These people have no idea what one Russian H-Bomb would do to a city let alone the fact that there are 12 H-Bombs targeted on NYC alone, and obviously many likewise on major cities in Scotland.

“Faslane would be targeted with multiple H-Bombs – 1000 H-bombs on 100 cities would induce nuclear winter and the end of most life on Earth.”

CONCLUSION

HUMAN nature demands we plan for disaster but human nature is flawed and anxious, especially when faced with the ludicrous task of planning for life after nuclear war. Luckily, campaigning doctors balance this absurdity with their expertise. It’s up to us which side we listen to.