“Shopping-bag Neuritis” Is Under Investigation By Department of Health

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26842, 5 August 1948, Page 5

“Shopping-bag Neuritis” Is Under Investigation By Department of Health

Special to the Daily Times

WELLINGTON, Aug. 4,

“ Shopping-bag neuritis,” which had its origin in Wellington reports and was later dismissed by Dunedin reports as an imaginative complaint, was well airdd and with some heat in the House of Representatives to-day. The Minister of Health, Miss Howard, said she had been a housekeeper since she was nine and knew what the problems of a housekeeper had been. She added that she was now 54 and in fact had been a housekeeper almost all her life.

The discussion arose from a reply by the Minister to a question from Mr D. C. Kidd (Oppn., Waimate) in which she said that she had seen the report in which a doctor said that women were being crippled by a special ailment known as “shopping-bag neuritis” and that the Department of Health was investigating the matter to ascertain the extent and incidence of the special ailment mentioned.

Mr G. H. Mackley (Oppn., Masterton) said that the women of New Zealand knew that they could expect no sympathy from the Government benches and that it was to the Opposition they should look. The Minister had no sympathy for the women of New Zealand and she did not fully understand the problems of housekeeping. Miss Howard replied that this was an unwarranted statement. Possibly some women to-day had “ shoppingbag neuritis ” because they had the money to buy what they needed. She had experienced doing the family shopping- and returning home on a bicycle looking like a packhorse. She objected to anyone trying to make political capital by alleging that she had no sympathy for women. Mr W. H. Gillespie (Oppn., Hurunui) said that the reason many shopkeepers did not resume deliveries was the present labour position. It was up to the Government to create the conditions under which deliveries could be resumed. There were suggestions about husbands doing the shopping, but what sort of a situation would arise when the menfolk, instead of being at their employment, were engaged in shopping? . Mr Kidd said that if the lack of deliveries caused “ shopping-bag neuritis ” the Government should do something about it. Saturday morning closing had turned women into Friday packhorses. He hoped the national conference of the Women’s Institutes now sitting in Wellington would request the Government to do something about it.

The delegates to this conference unfortunately were not present at the debate on this subject, and when they attended in force last night the House was engaged on the Hoardings Bill which provoked a discussion more of an aesthetic than a physical nature. The Minister of Industries and Commerce, Mr Nordmeyer, said that no obstacle had been placed in the way of those who really wanted to reinstitute deliveries in many parts of New Zealand. Deliveries* were continued throughout the war, but the fact was that some retailers had used the war as an excuse to discontinue deliveries and had not resumed them.

It was totally incorrect for any person outside the House to say that the Government was hindering the restoration of deliveries. Petrol would be supplied and licences granted, and every encouragement given to resume deliveries.. The fault which now existed was that of certain private firms which refused to recognise their obligations to the community. The subject was “ talked out ” with the tea adjournment at 5.30 p.m.