RETURNED RAILWAY MEN

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16030, 22 January 1920, Page 9

RETURNED RAILWAY MEN

GRIEVANCES DISCUSSED AT TAIHAPE.

At the general meeting of Taihape and District R.S.A. on Friday, Mr McCarmick asked if the Association could do anything in the direction of remedying the grievances of returned railwaymen, whom the railway medical officers had declined to pass as fit to resume duty with the Department. He pointed out that a number of these men had been compelled to forego their promotions and to accept minor positions in the railway service on account of having been classed as unfit or provisionally fit by a railway doctor. He stated that in many cases the loss of wages amounted to £4 per month. When these men were attested for service they had to accept as final the decision of the military doctors, and on their return they had to accept the military doctor’s decision as final, and they also had to accept as final the probably different decision of the railway doctors. He maintained that if the military doctors classed a man. Fit A when discharged, and if the same man was subsequently passed as unfit for duty by a railway medical officer he should be qualified to receive a pension. The secretary was instructed to represent the matter.