HOME GUARDSMEN AND MEDICAL EXAMINATION

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 80, 5 April 1943, Page 2

HOME GUARDSMEN AND MEDICAL EXAMINATION

TT was stated by an army witness at the inquests on two Home Guardsmen who died from heart failure in Christchurch that the medical aspect did not enter into their service. These two deaths and others which occurred earlier indicate that there is need for some form of medical examination. The members of the Guard have earned the gratitude of the rest of the people of New Zealand for their willinsr sacrifices m the defence of the Dominion, but, particularly when thev are enlisted for camp duties, there should be at least an elementary medical examination. In one case in Christchurch the Guardsman in his seventieth year, was undergoing a course of training at a military camp. Probably the training was not of a strenuous nature, but special courses should not be given to any aged man until he has passed a test of his physical condition. Otherwise there is always a possibility of his physical condition being such that in the event of an emer-encv when urgently required for the task for which he had been trained he would be unequal to the sudden strain. Many diseases of the heart can be detected, and the army should not, by omitting a medical examination, take the avoidable risk of the loss of trained personnel no matter what branch the training is for. personnel, no