NEARLY 3000 CASES

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 43, 19 August 1941, Page 11

NEARLY 3000 CASES

CRIPPLED CHILDREN HELPED

WORK OF THE SOCIETY

"The New Zealand executive is working to secure for every cripple or potential cripple in this country all the care he needs," states the report to be presented at the annual meetir.g of the New Zealand Crippled Children Society in Wellington, on Thursday. "While its goal is, in this, sense, a national one, its work is based on the fundamental principle that any-scheme which is to deal successfully with the needs of each individual cripple must preserve the personal touch, through local associations, with the children themselves and be conducted in close co-operation with the parent society."

A return embodied in the report gives the total number of children on the registers of the 17 branches of the society at March 31 as 2961, comprising 1595 males and 1217 females. Auckland has the highest total with 738 cases, Wellington has 468, Canterbury and Westland 466, Dunedin 294, Wanganui 154, Manawatu 148, Southland 124, Gisborne 110, Wairarapa 96, Hawke's Bay 82, New Plymouth 61, Nelson 59, South Canterbury 57, North Otago 39, Marlborough 39, South Taranaki 22, and Stratford 4. Actually 390 new registrations were recorded by the 17 branches during the year, but after deducting the number of children who have been cured, withdrawn, transferred, or died, the net increase was 228 children.

One of the problems of the society, the report adds, is the- continued employment of crippled children after they had attained the age of 21, and the council proposed to obtain information from all branches to enable them to study the problem from a national point of view.

Welfare officers were now employed by the following branches:—-Welling-ton, Nelson, Manawatu, Wanganui. Southland, Hawke's Bay, East Coast and Poverty Bay, Wairarapa, Dunedin. Canterbury and Westland, and Auckland. The work of welfare officers m surveying branch districts and establishing liaison with hospital authorities and members of the medical profession.

employers, the Labour Department, and education authorities, was proving an important part of the work of the society.

The total income of all branches aggregated £10,634 8s lid, and the total expenditure amounted to £8132 13s 3d. The total income from all sources, including bequests, £670, exceeded the expenditure by £2501 15s Bd, notwithstanding that eight branches overspent their combined income by £923 9s 7d. The funds subscribed by the general public exceeded the grants from the New Zealand Society by £3801 2s Id. which served to illustrate that the people of the Dominion continued to respond generously to the benefactions of Lord Nuffield and others for the benefit of crippled children.