P.O.W.’s medical claim rejected

Press, 27 October 1982, Page 22

P.O.W.’s medical claim rejected

Parliamentary reporter

The Government has declined to give high priority to a proposal to extend free medical services across the board to former prisoners of war regardless of whether their disabilities resulted from war service.

The Minister in charge of War pensions. Mr Thomson, said this in Parliament in response to a question. He said he had received representations from the ExPrisoners of War Association and made a detailed reply to them. The Social Welfare Department already met the costs of medical and surgical treatment for disabilities that had been accepted as being attributable to or aggravated by service in the forces. Free public hospital treatment was also available.

A disability allowance, the maximum of which was shortly to be increased to $12.50 a week, was available to meet expenses arising from the disablement of someone who received an income-tested social security benefit or war pension, or whose income would allow the payment of such a benefit or pension, Mr Thomson said.

Former prisoners of war receiving a war pension or

national supernnuation also qualified for a higher rate of general medical services benefit for doctor's consultations.

Ex-prisoners of war who considered their disabilities had become worse with increasing age could apply for a review of the level of their pension, he said.

The same right applied to former service personnel who were suffering from disabilities that they considered were a result of service but had never claimed a pension.

The Ex-Prisoners of War Association would not abandon its fight for free medical attention for members, the president, Mr Joffre Toiton, of Dunedin, has said.

The health problems of the 4500 former prisoners still alive, many of whom are now aged 70, were of mounting concern, he said. The association believed the Government owes it to them to provide free medical care. “Are former prisoners of war on the conscience of the Government?"

Mr Toiton said a total of 5600 New Zealanders were imprisoned in German and Italian camps during World War 11.

He said Britain and New Zealand were the only two English-speaking nations that had not done anything about providing former war prisoners with free medical treatment.