LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 72, 22 September 1943, Page 4

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

EFFECT OF MEANS TEST

Sir, —So far as I have been able to judge, all parties seem determined to ignore the injustice of Social Security as it affects invalids, particularly housewives, who are not inmates of hospitals and who are unable to draw any invalidity pension as their husband's income is above that allowed" by the means test. Mine is not an isolated case and will serve as an example. For the past year I have had to remain constantly in bed and it has cost us £4 a week for nursing and household help. Certainly I could have spent this year in hospital and it would have cost us nothing for medical and nursing attention. By. staying in my own home a hospital! has been freed," but why should we have to pay full social security tax when in shouldering our own burdens we have been under constant heavy expense? Another example of hardship I know of was when a daughter earning a good salary gave up her position to allow her mother to leave hospital and be nursed at home through a long illness. The daughter applied for social security benefit supposed to be paid in such a case but was refused because she had not exhausted her, own savings and her father drew superannuation of £5 per week besides having a couple of hundred pounds in the bank —his lifetime savings. If these and similar cases may not draw any invalid or other pension surely it is unjust that we should have to pay full tax while actually saving the social security and Hospital Board funds the cost of a bed in hospital. Some inducement should be given to encourage home nursing and thus relieve our already overcrowded hospitals.—l am, etc., INVALID.