AFTERMATH

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 230, 25 October 1940, Page 4

AFTERMATH

RATHER incongruous it may have seemed, to note the County Council's discussion on the care of soldiers after the war, yet we hasten to agree with its contention that this is a responsibility which should definitely be shouldered, by the State. With the war scarcely begun (from a strictly military point of view at any rate) it may appear as rather a long shot to be'discussing the problems of invalid soldiers in what we all sincerely hope will be the happier years ahead, but the fact remains that unless these matters are ventilated they will tend to become hardened as points of Government policy which in a few years will .be beyond dispute. The Whakatane Hospital Board has its own problems without being saddled with a superstructure of liability which as " time goes on may become a crushing burden of reponsibility hindering the smooth-running of the institution. But the suggestion that local Hospital Boards should shoulder this matter i s as unfair as it is uncalled for. Soldier patients are definitely the responsibility of the State, and it ill-,becomes the Government to se6k to thrust them upon district Hospital Boards of limited finances., and with heavy obligations to meet.