SOLDIERS' PENSIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 132, 5 June 1923, Page 3

SOLDIERS' PENSIONS.

HOW THEY ARE TAKEN AWAY,

AN AMAZING SITUATION. j THREE QUEER GASES QUOTED. The pathos and suffering revealed in the following letter from a patient at Queen Mary Hospital, Hanmer, speak , with simple eloquence of the present j situation of some of our returned sol-. diers; and the two cases quoted from the records of the Auckland Provincial i Patriotic Association throw further j light on the workings of the present i system in regard to soldiers' pensions. They may be allowed to speak for themselves: — "Queen Mary Hospital, Hanmer Springs.—Just a line to let you know ( I am somewhat better than I was when j you saw mc last at Evelyn Firth Home, I although I really do not think they can j do much for my physical condition here. They had a good go last time for seven months. However, as the doctor says, 1 am a t'crier' all the way. . This time it was eight weeks after the doctor j ordered mc into the hospital before I ! was admitted, and naturally 1 had gone I from bad to worse—and then the old head started to go until at tunes I really thought I would finish at A vondale—especially after hearing a conversation between Dr. nd my wife. However, thank God that part of it is gone. I liml a letter from the wife and she told mc she had received a grant from the Patriotic Association. . . She has had a pretty rough time this last cotiplu | of yerrs, what with worrying about mc. j and looking after the place. . . One thing I want you to do for mc, and not gers in the same position. Since coining here this time I have discovered that after receiving treatment at this hospital the second time, and in discharge, whether cured or not, we arc absolutely debarred from either receiving a pension or from any further medical treatment. Of course the outside public am not supposed to know anything about it; but still the face remains that this is the attitude the Pensions Department takes up. . . Personally. I think it is a matter that should be given the widest publicity, and I beg of you to have this matter treated as urgent and to have jt ventilated. Take my position, that is only typical of hundreds of others who have gone through this hospital and who are froing through now for the second time. WORK OR STARVE. "As you know, like most, of the boys, I have always been a toiler. Very well, since 101S I have T>een on a pension of from 10/ to 30/ a week, at different times. After seven •months' treatment here and at Trentham last year, T was discharged, localise instead of improving physically, T wns starting to go back, losing weight, etc., and they advised mc to go out for a few months to see if I would <lo better outside. Very well; they gave mc a pension of £1 a week— and told mc on no account to go back to the bush or do hard work, and to report to Dr. . As £1 a week would not keep us, I simply had to go to work. With the doctor's advice I went toj the easiest thing 1 could pel—relief work on the road at Coromandel. Result: lasted five weeks and broke down worse than ever. That was in January. Have been under the doctor on and off the whole time since till my admission this month, living on the £1 a week pension. (Thank God. I had a garden and the fowls—though the latter cost mc more than they earned.) Now comes the point: I will probably be here from two to three months—for they <lon't keep you long here now when your mental condition is all right—Til be patched up for a few weeks or months, and—what then? I will get no pension on discharge and will not be entitled to any further medical treatment whatever from the department, because T have been through Hanmer the second time. WHAT CAN. HE DO? " What am T to do ? fin to work ? Certainly! What will bo the result of my next breakdown ? A public hospital, charitable aid. an appeal to the Patriotic Association, live on my friend, or— oblivion! A nice outlook, certainly! .. . Is it fair to the Hospital Board, the Patriotic Association, one's friends, or the ratepayers? Yet this is what will continue unless the matter is taken up and the general public are let know what 17,000 Diggers gave their lives for. Do we come hack here a second time of oar own free will? No: we are compelled to come or else lose our pensions for * refusing medical treatment? . Then, becauso they cannot cure us here they turn us out ajrain and take our pensions and medical treatment away for coming. If it were not so damnably serious it would be laughable. If this is allowed to continue for lonjr you will see the results of it in your streets and gaols, and in the lunatic asylums and hospitals, for. knowing what they do now. the boys will simply refuse to report their condition until I they go from bad to worse. It would sur- | prise you to know the number who have been through here for the second time. I was going to write to Mr. Lee and j other Auckland members of Parliament, and to the Mayor (Mr. Guiison). but I know you will place this matter before them and the public, so they can give its a hand to get the workings and the reasons of the Pensions Board inquired into." A WHOLE TEN SHILLINGS! The Auckland Provincial Patriotic Association has had under consideration complaints from a number of returned soldiers who have had their .periefonsi stopped. AfteT strenuous fighting 'by the association, some of these pensions have •been restored, but. there are still some cases on the file which reveal tho Pensions Board in a very queer light, to say the least of it. Here are two which will snrve as examples. "A." is a returned soldier who was discharged in December, 191 S. suffering from myalgia, and givoifa pension of 10/ a week. He has been in continual ill-healbh since his discharge. In October last the Patriotic Association had him medicatlv examined, and it was shown that he had general pains of a rheumatic character in the muscles and joints, also deranged action of the heart, and a "patch" on the top of the right lung. The report further stated that the man was not fit for : work. This was reported to the War Pensions Board, which replied in November last that the pension of 10/ a week was considered appropriate "to the extent or his pensionable disability," which was that of 'myalgia," and that In regard to his ung trouble, the board, in conference with the Director-Oeneral of Medical Servieee, had ruled that there wa no , evidence that this condition was duo to war services.

AN EXTRAORDINARY DECISION. The Director-General of Medical Services was in Auckland some time later. I when he was informed at the office of \ the Patriotic Association that this '. soldier's lung trouble developed shortly after his discharge from the forces —in ■ fact, a month after—and the Director- ; General then stated that if a medical ' report confirming this was submitted to | the Pensions Board the case would be re-considered. On this, a report was obtained from the superintendent of ilic- Auckland Hospital, which showed that the soldier in question was admitted to the hospital in January, 1019 —within a month of his discharge—when his chest was examined by X ray, and showed a certain amount of "fibroid change—in other words, pulmonary incapacity. That report was forwarded to the Pensions Board; but, notwithstanding that the man was in hospital with lung trouble within i. month of his discharge, the Board again reiterated that it waa unable to alter its attitude that such lung trouble could not in any way be connected with the patient's war service. That decision really amounts to this—that two years and lot days of war service abroad did not affect the soldier's lungs, but the strain , of a montirs rest after his discharge did. I There are many who will want to knowby what marvellous process of medical reasoning this conclusion was arrived at. NO PENSION.FOR HIM. Then there is the case of '"B." a discharged soldier, now suffering with neurasthenia, pulmonary disease, and lung trouble. lie gets no pension at all. j ''13 was discharged from Queen Mary i Hospital, Han mc r, in March, 1022, and j (under the present astonishing system) < his pension ceased with his discharge. ! He was palpably a sick man, and his ', case wa.s taken up by lhi\ Patriotic Association when lie returned to Auckland Reports from four riiirerent doctors engaged by the association to examine the man' have been .-.cut to the War Pensions Board, showing him to be suffering fr.>m neurasthenia, disorderly action of the heart (with a pulse of 100, rising to 110 on slight exertion, and pulmonary trouble. ANOTHER AMAZING CASE. One of the reports is from a medical man who served with "H" in the Tunnelling Corps in France. This states that "13" wa.i twice treated by him in France for severe cas poisoning. The soldier dsveloped heart trouble, and was in a critical condition until evacuated. When examined in Auckland he was much thinner than when in France, and his nerves had apparently suffered severely. "He was," continued the report, "considered one of the beet men in the Tunnelling Company, and was always the first to volunteer for any dangerous work." These representations, accompanied by medical certificates, were submitted to the War Pensions Board, but the board decided that the disabilities of the man who wae always the lirot to volunteer for any dangerous work, who was twice "gassed," and whose heart was so badly alTected in France that hi,s condition waa regarded as critical, were not due to war service—and refused him a pension! So much for these caecs. There arc probably many hundreds similar throughout New Zealand.