WAR PENSIONS

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 14, 11 October 1919, Page 8

WAR PENSIONS

_—$ —, —. , MEN IN MENTAL HOSPITALS

A. CONCESSION ANNOUNCED >,\ A statement regardincr the payment nf Trap pensions in respect of returned soldiers in mental hospitals was made in the House of Bepreientativos by '■ the j Minister of Defence (Sir James Allen). The practice of the War Pensions Board, said the Minister, had been not to grant any pension to a patient in a mental hospital, although pensions had been granted to dependants of these men. The toard .had.reconsidered the matter, and it proposed now, -while not., paying, any pension when the man was'in the mental hospital, to. consider , each ease on its .merits at the time of-discharge from the. .mental hospital. The memorandum .supplied by. the board, added the Minister,' stated that while the present rule would be continued as long as the man remained in a . raeiital hospital, .the Mml would be prepared to favourably consider payment of the full disablement pension for the period of detention, after discharge from the hospital, subject to adjustment in respect of any pension already. paid to the dependants. Two conditions were made. ..The board proposed to limit the period' for .which the pension would be paid retrospectively to'two years, but the case of any soldier who had been detain- ■ ed in the mental hospital for more than two yeaTs would be considered on its merits. The other condition related to payments of pension to dependants. An adjustment was necessary owing to the fact that in the case of a married soldier detained in a mental hospital, the wife would be granted the disablement of ,£1 a week, and,' if she had children she would also Teceive' the widow's pension of ,£2 a week. ■ -R l "',,- 4 ', K ' Newman (Wellington' East) flaid that cases had'been brought under hi? notice of men who almost certainly wouid never come out of the mental hosipitals. . WouldJ tbe relatives get the money or would they have to wait years' and years? Would the widowed mother get anything? Sir Jame3 'Allen: The widow will <*et h pension. . " , ° Suppose\the man is detod to be incurable, will his relatives farted? P Bn »on, which he has Allen: The wife will be entitled to the disablement nension. The man .will be kept at tho exnense of the ¥ gOK out tills proposal will not eventuate. -