MEDICAL SERVICE

Waikato Times, Volume 129, Issue 21590, 28 November 1941, Page 6

MEDICAL SERVICE

INDUSTRY IN BRITAIN DOCTORS’ PROPOSALS LOSSES THROUGH ILLNESS C l?nited Press Assn.—Elec. Tel. Copyright) (Received Nov. 28, 3.15 p.m.) LONDON, Nov. 27 A report by a special committee of the British Medical Association expresses the opinion that the time is ripe for the extension of the industrial medical service on humanitarian and economic grounds. It points out that industry annually loses 31,500,000 weeks’ work through ordinary ill-health, largely colds, influenza and gastric troubles. The annual loss therefrom to industry is estimated at £30,000,000. Toe committee believes that more emphasis should be placed on the preventive aspects of industrial practice, with closer co-operation between the medical profession and industry. Doctors and employers should more fully understand the importance of industrial factors in causing ill-health and disease. The committee advocates that all factories, large and small, should arrange medical care for workers within the industrial environment. It also urges an efficient liaison between the factory and the outside medical services and recommends the establishment of a national organisation for industrial health research. Criticism of Minister The Lancet describes Mr E. Bevin’s appeal for increased war production for six months as folly. It adds: “Patriotism isn’t enough. We can be ruthless with materials, not with the human tools fashioning them. Excessive overtime over a long period had a devastating effect on human mental and physical reserves. The effort could be greatly increased without collapse for a period of two t>r three months, as after Dunkirk, but it would be folly to drive factory workers blindly for six months, as Mr Bevin suggested, without regard to rest and recreation.”