WAR DISABILITIES

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 115, 19 May 1925, Page 9

WAR DISABILITIES

DISCUSSED BY R.S.A CONFERENCE

The. matter of war disabilities in relation to pensions and insurance -.vus discussed at the annual district conference of the Returned Soldiers' Association at Palmorston North on tho reading of a remit from the Wellington branch:— "That whereas an applicant has been refused a pension by the board and again by the Board of Appeal on their medical advisors' report as being free or not now suffering from a war disability, he shall be eiitiueu to a cei-uticuio siyn^u uy w«e medical men concerned to that effect,, such certificate to be accepted, if so desired by the holder, by the Goveruraent Life Insurance Department when application is made for a policy." In moving that tho remit be sent on to the Dominion conference, Mr. W. J. Pascoe. the Wellington delegate, said that, to his own knowledge, there were many men who were not able to work through war disabilities who were not allowed a pension by- the board, which considered that they were not suffering from any war disability. Frequently these men, when making application for life insurance with the Government, were turned down because of their disability. Tho association had a duty to these men. If a returned soldier was not allowed a pension because of his being said to be free from war disability, he should be given a certificate to that effct, which should be accepted by the life insurance department. '•The chairman (Mr. B. J. Jacobs) pointed out that it was quite possible that tho man might be refused a policy because of a disability resulting from other than war causes. He thought that the remit should be altered to* read that the life insurance department should accept the certificate as proof only of tho man's freedom from , war disability. It. was quite on the cards that a man might be refusec? a policy because of post-war disability. Mr. Pascoo concurred with this -view.

Colonel . A. H. Herbert (Ekctahuna), | stated that the remit opened up a big question. "How are you going to say seven years after wjiat is a war disabil- | ity or a, war diseaso?" Big pdssibjilities of expenditure were in sight. Somo men had tho obsesson that they were suffering from war disability when, in fact, they were not. Then .again, itj was sometimes' extremely difficult to say whether men who had contracted neurasthenia had it as the result of war service or not

Mr. -Pascoe stated that when returning to New, Zealand in the transports, some of the TOen, on being asked if anything was wrong with them, had replied in the negative when they were really suffering from some illness or disability because of the fact that they wished to immediately go to their homes and not to sanatoria. Now that answer counted against-them receiving pensions. If the life insurance department said, that a man was suffering from a war disability, he should be entitled to go back to the Appeal Board. It was the duty of the association to get medical advice with regard to men who said that they were suffering from war disability and had been turned down by the Pensions Board.- .

After further discussion, it -was decided to forward the remit on, with the insertion of the words "to that extent" after "such certificate to be accepted."