Rehabilitation Advocated

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31206, 2 November 1966, Page 3

Rehabilitation Advocated

(N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, Nov. 1. The Society of Physiotherapists today recommended in a submission to the Royal Commissions on Compensation for Industrial Injuries that special rehabilitation workshops or centres be set up. These would be for the benefit of those workers who were not cleared to return to full employment and for

whom light duties were necessary or desirable, the society submitted. Precise and accurate information on the cause of accidents was the foundation of an effective system of accident prevention, Mr H. G. Duncan said, on behalf of the Department of Labour. The department recommended an amendment to the Workers’ Compensation Act privileging the statutory report by the employer to his insurance company concerning an accident suffered by one of his employees so that such reports are not admissible as evidence in courts. It also recommended the same

privilege for subsidiary reports. The Secretary of the Labourers’ Union (Mr P. B. Butler) said too much importance was placed on pounds, shillings and pence in relation to industrial casualties rather than on the reduction of the scourge itself. Injured workers and their dependents in fatal cases, were immediately suspect and were subjected to conditions of inquiry and scrutiny equal to, and sometimes greater than, that of a person charged with a criminal offence, especially if the accident resulted in a civil action, he said.