Rehabilitating Home Servicemen

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 31, 19 March 1948, Page 5

Rehabilitating Home Servicemen

Certain Aids Available On Service Grounds Any ex-home-serviceman suffering from substantial and permanent pensionable disability had always been favourably considered for any suitable type of rehabilitation asssitance, said the Director of Rehabilitation, Mr F. Baker, at the monthly meeting of the Rehabilitation Board. It was very unlikely that a reasonable application from such a home-serviceman would be turned down.

Reference had been made by the Minister of Rehabilitation, Mr Skinner, to a deputation from the New Zealand Home-servicemen’s association, which, had suggested that home servicemen with permanent disabilities should not be subject to the priorities system when seeking housing assistance. He had assured the deputation that such men would receive very favourable consideration for any type of aid needed. He had also explained that any homeserviceman could apply for training at the Board’s building trade centres. “I have been very much impressed by the reasonable attitude the Home-servicemen’s Association has adopted right through,” said Mr Skinner. “Their attitude has been very helpful.” Home-servicemen are at present eligible on the basis of service alone for loan assistance to purchase tools of trade and furniture (12 months’ service), and housing loans (four years’ service, or three years including a period overseas). They are also immediately eligible for career training and warranted educational assistance. The Board recently decided the time had not yet arrived when extension to homeservicemen of eligibility for business loans should be made on service grounds. Similarly, the Board at a recent meeting decided that, because of the large number of eligible ex-service-men still awaiting settlement on farms of their own, further consid-

eration of extending to home-ser-vicemen immediate eligibility for farm settlement aid should be deferred until February, 1949, when the position will again be reviewed. Apart from service grounds, homeservicemen can be considered for all forms of rehabilitation assistance on the grounds of re-instate-ment in something given up •to enter the forces or actually lost as a direct result of service.