CARE OF CRIPPLES.

Waikato Times, Volume 107, Issue 18026, 22 May 1930, Page 11

CARE OF CRIPPLES.

NEED FOR ORGANISATION. PROBLEM FOR DOMINION. The necessity for some organisation having as its definite object the training and after-care of cripples, in order that they might be enabled to achieve some measure of self-support, was the subject of an address by Dr. Alex Gillies at the Rotary Club, at Wellington. , They were told, said Dr. Gillies, that there was no cripple problem in New Zealand. There was no society for cripples, and there had been no systematic survey of the cities and districts. They had no idea how many cripples there .were up to seyen or 14 years of age, or at any age" To the statement that the State which educated the child should also take up the duty of launching him in an appropriate walk of life, the answer was that after school age it was the parents’ responsibility. The industrial cripple, the victim of public accidents, heart disease, rheumatism, etc., should be included in any scheme for the physically defective. Advance Necessary. In prevention and after-care New Zealand could stand abreast with any nation, educating cripples up to the age of 14, but after that the authorities overlooked the cripples entirely and gave no thought to their training or employment, continued the speaker. They were allowed to drift, and he had seen pitiful examples in his work here. A central council for_ the care of cripples had been established in England. In 1925 the British Medical Journal published an article on teaching a cripple a trade, and the outcome was that a sub-committee was set up to collect information as to the occupations different kinds of cripples could follow, and to take steps to interest employers in finding openings for them .when discharged from hospital. Granting that there had been no cripple problem in New Zealand in years gone by, they were just now coming into the vocational problem of the products of the first infantile paralysis epidemic in 1916. There was no record to show just how many •cripples there were as a result of that epidemic, but many pitiful cases had come to his notice. The unfortunate cripple who had grown to adolescence or middle age had no provision made for him beyond temporary relief and precarious charity. His position was a bitter one. He was the right to work as a man, he could not compete in the open market, and there were no jobs earmarked for the physically defective- Someone had said, “Strong boys of 16 waste their time by running up and down in office, lifts, and ancient men on pensions sit on museum chairs or dodder around public parks.”

Problem Not. Tackled

No attempt had ever been made to find out the number of adult or semiadult cripples, said Dr. Gillies, nor what trade or work would be suitable for them. The Government helped the blind, the deaf and dumb, and spent much money on the most helpless of all —mental defective —but a concerted plan to help the physically defective to earn his or her own living was conspicuous by its absence. In Wellington there were about 20 organisations for relief, but where was the constructive plan to meet the cases of cripples? Go-relation was necessary. There was no central clearing house. Very often progress was obstructed by the attitude of the employers, in whose mind _ physical disability connoted economic inefficiency, and cripples would not get their chance until that prejudice was overcome. An organisation was needed to place cripples of 14 years and upward in productive employment, to promote such measures as sought the economic independence of the cripple, something which would link up ajl existing hospitals, after-care clinics, schools and training centres. It someone to organise such an organisation, for it was said people judged a cause by the kind of men who supported it. He commended the idea to Rotarians. He would like to say that up to a point they had not neglected the cripples, but they had to go further yet. In conclusion the speaker quoted the words of Sir Robert Jones on behalf of the central committee in England: “It is perfectly right, even imperative, to demand a scheme for training. To treat a cripple and leave him stranded in his struggle to exist is only a very incomplete achievement.”