BANE OF IDLENES

Southland Times, Issue 19659, 9 October 1922, Page 2

BANE OF IDLENES

RETURN TO DUTY AFTER INJURY. (By the Medical correspondent of The Times.) When a worker suffers injury he frequently disappears from his accustomed place in shop or factory during a prolonged period (says the medical correspondent of The Times). He may be quite well except for his injury, and that may involve only a single joint or muscle or tendon. Yet he is prevented from doing any kind of work, must idle about at home, and tends to drift into habits of mind and body which are as damaging to himself as to his employer. The fault belongs partly to the somewhat inelastic system of compensation in force in this country. A man who is in receipt of compensation cannot work—on the theory that you cannot have it both ways. Nevertheless, he may be fit for light work and would be happier and healthier were he performing it. This point is engaging attention in the United States, where a demand has recently been formulated that the treatment of an injury must be so conducted as to offer the least possible obstacle to the carrying out of some form of work. There must be full and effective treatment, but in so far as this is not likely to be interfered with or rendered ineffective, the daily task must be continued. LOSING MORALE. There is no doubt that being “off work” for prolongued periods is demoralising to every human being. Work is more than a performance; it is a habit of mind. Into its processes comes the sense of sendee and so of personal value. But when it has been abandoned that sense is replaced by another—the feeling of dependence. The receiver of a dole, no matter by what name it may be called, becomes, sooner or later, an inferior being if at the time of reception he is capable of any kind of service to his fellows and is not performing that service. This is often the very position which our laws force an active and able man to occupy. He has, let us say, broken some bones in his foot. He is not able to get to work, though, once there, he could carry on quite well. He is detained at home with his leg in a splint. Time passes, and the foot is healing but slowly. Idleness, now that the first shock of pain has disappeared, begins to exercise its numbing effect. The good workman, keen and active, grows less keen and more ready to agree that he must “take every care.” In the end he is, too often, a changed man. His mental outlook is not what it was before the accident. In those days his work, with all its implications and associations, filled his mind; now his mind is filled with himself, his bodily state, the condition of his foot, the pain in it, or its stiffness. Without the slightest conscious desire to exaggerate his trouble he really does exaggerate it, for it has taken the place in his mind which used to be occupied by ambition or enthusiasm. By a process of transference it has become an object in itself. SYSTEM AT FAULT. We arc apt to say hard things of men of this kind. That they reach such a state is, however, more often .the fault of the system than of themselves. It is the system which forces them, in the first instance, tq lose or relinquish ambition. The remedy is a scheme whereby those who are willing and able to do some work shall be helped to do it. That is not easy to devise in the present condition of affairs, and most employers prefer to "leave matters to the doctor” and refuse to have anyone back who is not guaranteed fit. In following such a course, however, they act selfishly as well as unwisely. For they fail to extend a helping hand to those who need it, and at the same time they risk the loss of a good employee. SAVING PRECIOUS HOURS. It is not beydnd the wit of man to devise a method of compensation which shall permit work at full rates of pay. The essence of compensation after all is damage. In so far as damage has been done to working power it must be made good, but in so far as working power remains it must, or ought to be, used. The two ideas arc not mutually exclusive. In the United States some hospitals have their workshops attached so that the “spirit of usefulness” may not be lost even by patients who have had serious injuries. This is a step in the right direction. Hospital workshops, however, arc never so satisfactory as a man’s own place of work. It is better to transport him to his accustomed task if that is possible. In short, a man must be made to feel that he cannot be spared. Therein lies the secret of happiness and of rapid restoration Compare the recovery rate of owners of businesses which arc dependent on them with that of employees who feel themselves to be merely units of a large body! It is not that the latter are less honest or less anxious to do their duty. It is only that they are human beings.