HOSPITAL BOARD RELIEF

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21401, 27 January 1933, Page 12

HOSPITAL BOARD RELIEF

Sir, —An explanation is due to the public iij regard to your sub-leader of Wednesday dealing with hospital finance, in so far as it deals with outdoor relief, and your statement that, "it can be inferred that so little check is exercised in the distribution of relief that many families are receiving local as well as national aid," is not a clear statement of fact. Yon could count on the fingers, of one hand (hose cases where doctors have ordered special foods for diabetic cases where men are working on relief, but on account of largo families need the whole of that income for ordinary food for their families. The £47.000 spent on outdoor relief which you give such prominence to as having taken place during the last nine months, includes £13,000 definitely spent on unemployment relief before the Unemployment Board " took over the responsibility of it, which makes the amount spent on ordinary relief £34.000, or £BOOO less and not £SOOO more than for the first nine months of 1930, which was the year we got a special grunt of £IO,OOO for unemployment relief. In December, 1932, we spent E3404 on ordinary relief; in December, 1931, £7043; showing the abnormal claims of unemployment relief in the latter year, but what has "happened since then ? Desertions have increased nearly twofold, we get nearly double the orders from medical men showing undernourishment of children when we have to supply malt and oil and spectacles as well as dental treatment, too, to enable some children to attend school. Double the number of old people, some over 90 years of age, whose families were able to keep them, now seek our aid, because of the poor earning powers of their sons and daughters. We have to keep more families of men who are in gaol. The whole problem of growing relief is sad in the extreme. We have the "new poor" with us and no use would be served by statinc definite cases, but men worth i thousands of pounds a few years ago are now getting food allowances from us. Worst of all is the alarming increase in sickness and half the cases we deal with arc caused through sickness. These are not normal times, but the inference that "double banking" is taking place between the Unemployment Board and the Hospital Board cannot he too severely controverted; it doesn't exist. Those who arc a charge on the Unemployment Board are not, on the Hospital Board hooks and every social worker and eVerv local body, knows this to bo the case. In fact, the relief committee has had to withstand the pleadings of many members of local bodies, and as things unfortunately stand at the present time, this has been done in their own interests. No department connected with Hospital Board work is more effi cientlv run than the relief office under the control of Mr. C. N. Newman, who has a combination of qualities which makes him a most efficient officer.. W. K. Howmv