SOLDIERS' WORK

Evening Post, Volume XCVII, Issue 93, 22 April 1919, Page 7

SOLDIERS' WORK

CURATIVE TREATMENT.,

In a letter to the Auckland Centra of the Red.Cross and the Order of St. John, Sir James Allen (Minister of Defence) explains the pin-pose and methods of the curative treatment now practised with soldiers in hospitals and. convalescent homes. The association had. suggested that soldiers undergoing treatment at Rotorua should be allowed.* to sell for their own profit articles which they made in their own time. In She course of his reply the Minister explains that the occupational work done in hospitals in New Zealand is part' of that general scheme of educational and.vocational training now in force in New Zealand. Soldiers in hospitals have suffered from lack of occupation,, both mental and physical. In medical cases there is no standing still, and, unless some stimulus is applied, the tendency is for the soldier to go back mentally and physically. It is to counteract this tendency that the educational and vocational scheme has been brought into operation. It applies to all soldiers undergoing medical treatment whose health permits them to recßive training. Its object is the cure of the soldiers' disabilities, just in the same mannei', as massage, baths, or the application of electricity. ' The treatment varies , with the disability. To encourage them to take up trades when discharged, voca^ tional training such as boot-repairing and commercial education is also given in hospitals suid in technical schools. "It is not suggested in your letter that all these men should receive payment for being trained to work. To select those who in the course of such curative training happen to produce articles which may be sa-leable to the public as entitled to make money'out-of tfie work they produce is manifestly an unfair distinction. . . All soldiers working under-this scheme must be treated'alike, and any benefits which are given should not be given to any soldier individually, but bo available for all soldiers in- thjs hospital equally. This is done by the formation of a recreation fund; which is controlled by the soldiers themselves, subject to the approval of the principal medical officer. . . The question whether soldiers should be allowed to sell work done during hours when they were not detained to attend workshops as "park of their cure was carefully considered by a recent medical conference, and this concession was not recommended. To allow this would involve the right being given to. soldiers to accept private employment while paid by the State. This cannot be 'conceded. Hospital patients will under the new scheme be able to occupy their time under the educational and vocational training scheme to greater. advantage than in making baskets, and the stimulus of making money should not be necessary to induce \ so'idier to follow out with zest the treatment designed for Ms cure." .'".'■