MEN UNFIT FOE WORK

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21861, 25 July 1934, Page 14

MEN UNFIT FOE WORK

CALL ON HOSPITAL BOARDS AGREEMENT STILL IN FORCE The relief departments of hospital boards are concerned only with men certified as being unfit for any kind of work, and not with men certified as fit for light work, but in receipt of sustenance, according to u statement issued yesterday, by ' Mr. W. Wallace, president of the New Zealand Hospital Boards' Association, in reply to recent remarks by Mr. W. Bromley, deputychairman of the Unemployment Board.

Mr. Wallace said a conference was held in April, 1933, at which members of tho Unemployment Board, representatives of tho hospitals and the Hospital Boards' Association agrOed that unemployed men were to be divided into three classes. Class A, men fit for, any work, and Class B, men fit for light work, were to bo tho responsibility of tho Unemployment Board, while the hospitals, through their relief departments, undertook to care for tho Class C men, medically certified as unfit for any work.

"I waited on the Minister of Health in Wellington recently," Mr. Wallace continued, "and he agreed that thero could be no departure from that definite arrangement unless some fresh agreement were made. In my opinion the Unemployment Board's sustenance is totally inadequate, but that does not throw responsibility on to the shoulders of the hospital boards, which are allowed to provide in their estimates only sufficient finance for the relief of those cases for which they took responsibility under the agreement. Even then it is difficult to make ends meet."