THE RECENT EPIDEMIC.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16397, 17 December 1918, Page 8

THE RECENT EPIDEMIC.

TO THE EDITOR OT "TH* PBKSS."

Sir, —According to the report ofy®^ 1 " representative in his interview with the Minister for Internal Affairs, it is the Government's intention to present each, worker in the influenza epidemic with a certificate, as a slight memento of appreciation. What generosity! lor working twelve hours a day, and often more, to wipe out a deadly disease which the incapacity of the Health Department had allowed to spread from one end of the Dominion to the other, and which was coped with almost entirely by private enterprise and organisation, "a document, such as a school child might get for regular attendance, is to be received. So far, the Government has done absolutely nothing to assist in this great life-saving task but quibble and quibble over the subsidy which everyone expected would be paid on all donations. Alone, these donations must be quite inadequate to meet th<? cases of loss, and. in some instances, destitution which, the epidemic has caused. Yet the Government is quite prepared to waste hundreds of pounds on worthless certificates. The idea of their presentation is not only childish in the extreme, but wilfully wasteful. If the Government honestly wants to show its appreciation of the great work done, why does it not pay those who slaved so hard ? Though, tho task was undertaken without any idea of remuneration, yet there are plenty of workers whose incomes are such that tho high cost of living makes any unexpected addition most welcome. I presume all the doctors who took up the work under the block system (due also to the initiative of private citizens) will be paid by tho Department, and rightly so. But how would the doctors nave fared in their task had it not been for the efforts of the volunteers? They would undoubtedly have been quite hopelessly overloaded. Under our organisation each case reported was carei fully examined by a Ir.dy, an amateur nurse in most cases, and the task was I performed with so much efficiency and discretion that the selection of cases I for medical attendance rfade the doctors' work comparativelv light after the depots had been in working order only a few days. And so we are to receive a certificate of thanks, of value to no one, except to commemorate the greatest national disaster New Zealand has suffered. —Yours, etc., PATROL.