THE COST OF SICKNESS

Northern Advocate, 20 December 1928, Page 4

THE COST OF SICKNESS

It would be interesting to know the price Whangarei has paid for sickness during the past twelve months. As the Press says, when discussing w r hat sickness has cost Christchurch, even if no account were taken of the sicknesses that did not call for medical attention or result in a loss of w r ages, the total, if there were any means of arriving at it, would be staggering. It would be astonishing to be told of the number of people who had to stop work for even one day, if any record of that had been kept, or of the number of people who for very much more than one day were conscious that they wore below par. These are all causes of loss of which no one can'ever fee] the full effect, since no record is or can be made of it. But everyone who takes the trouble to think about it knows that if it could be expressed in money it would be-a record of a huge sum. We do, however, get estimates occasionally of sickness and invalidity costs, and one of the most impressive is included in Sir George Newman's latest report as Chief Medical Officer to England's Ministry of Health. Here again no account is taken of such losses as we has just been discussing, or indeed of losses of any kind except those which have not resulted in an application for sickness benefit. And yet the figurts are almost overwhelming. In England and Wales alone during 1927 nearly £8,0,00,000 was paid in sickness benefit to men, and nearly £4,000,000 to women, the estimated number of weeks' sickness being 9,200,000 in the case of men and 6.500.000 in the ease of women. But in addition to those huge sums over £4,000,000 was paid out to men w'ho had been temporarily disabled and nearly £2,500,000 for the same purpose to women, these totals representing a loss, of 9,000,000 weeks' work on account of, men and nearly 6,000,000 weeks on account of women. And of course the only people accounted for in these cases are those insured against sickness and disablement, so that without taking any account of the others, who are a majority, sickness robbed England and Wales last year of 30.500.000 weeks' work (586,540 years), or the equivalent of twelve months' work for nearly 590,000 persons. And as Sir George Newman points out, we have to remember not only the' 590,000 persons whose work for a whole year as lost—but also the labour and expense entailed in their care during their incapacitation. i