THE RAILWAY WORKERS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17029, 14 August 1929, Page 12

THE RAILWAY WORKERS

WAIKOKOPU REQUEST MEDICAL ATTENTION WANTED Correspondent.) A deputation from the railway workers at Waikokopu, comprising- Messrs. Ryland, Fabling and Prebble, waited on the Wairoa Hospital Board to prefer requests for medical and other assistance for "the men working on the Waikokopu-Gisborne section of the East Coast railway. Mr. Fabling, referring to the agreement under which Public Works Department men.were treated for their injuries at an agreed-upon payment, said he was authorised to say that it worked all right. What they wanted was a doctor to visit them. There were many children in the camps and it was expected there would be 1500 men there before long, as .the Government was concentrating on the work. The doctor should come out, say, twice a week, for transport was up against the men coining in for treatment for minor complaints. They would like the board to consider the appointment of a doctor, and failing that, a resident nurse. . Mr. Ryland read a copy of a resolution passed at a meeting embodying these requests, and gave details of several similar schemes at Mangahao and elsewhere.

Mr. Prebble gave figures of the numbers at the camps. . The chairman, Mr. T. Davev, pointed oat that on the treatment of men under the agreement the board had made a loss of £I3OO already, and to ask for a doctor to visit twice a week or at call was to ask for the impossible, for the board had no one to spare. They would like to help, but the nurse's services would be more easily available as soon as the car had been secured. One of the speakers said that whilo the camps now were not insanitary more than one was in a gullv, and when the summer sun poured down germs .would be bred and he hoped the board iwould get busy or they would receive the cases. After considering the deputation's requests, the board decided it could not see its way to make any further allowance, but arrangements would be made for the nurse to visit the camps when possible under the agreement.