Public concern and media coverage contrast Scotland’s increasing waiting lists with empty beds available at reduced rates in Switzerland.
The first flights to Zurich begin in June 1951 in a UK scheme for 400 patients to be treated at Davos and Leysin. Half are from Scotland.
It is publicised as the first triumph for an egalitarian NHS – ordinary British people now enjoying the best TB facilities in Europe hitherto only available to the very rich.
By the time it ends in 1956, more than 1000 Scots have been treated. It provides a welcome respite, at a considerable cost (£525,000), before effective chemotherapy pioneered in Edinburgh and copied around the world brings cure to even the most severe cases.