MEN ON PAROLE

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 22, 26 July 1945, Page 9

MEN ON PAROLE

MENTAL HOSPITAL WORK

Men being: released on parole from defaulters' detention camps, by the revision authorities, as distinct from the special tribunal, were being: considered for employment as attendants in mental hospitals, said the Minister of Finance (Mr. Nash) in the House of Representatives yesterday afternoon. He added that if these men, after being: interviewed by medical superintendents, were regarded as suitable for that employment they were being directed accordingly.

Mr. Nash, who was replying to an urgent question by Mr. W. J. Broadfoot (National, Waitomo), said that unless additional staff was provided a serious breakdown was feared. It was' the Government's policy to inquire men who were released on parole from defaulters' detention to accept work of the highest priority, and in view of that it was considered that the proposed action was fully justified in the public interest. The men were being directed in a temporary capacity and would be replaced as soon as other men became available. An unqualified assurance was given to existing staff that the direction of men released from detention to mental hospitals would in no way prejudice their rights or prospects in the Public Service.

It should also be appreciated, said Mr. Nash, that men who were released on parole by the revision authorities had been able to satisfy those authorities that they held genuine conscientious objection to service in the Armed Forces and their use as mental hospital attendants was in keeping with their conscientious beliefs. The proposal to use them in that type of work was an earnest effort to relieve the present acute staffing position.

Mr. Nash also said that he was informed that there were four members of the first furlough draft who had not been permitted up to the present to resume their pre-service employment in the Mental Hospitals Department. The question of their recmploymcnt and the whole position regarding members of the first furlough draft was at present under consideration by War • Cabinet.