WANT AND SICKNESS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 54, 1 September 1943, Page 3

WANT AND SICKNESS

MAJOR ATTACK PLANNED

CHRISTCHURCH, This Day,

!O.C. CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. "The National Party is determined to tackle the five giants of want, sickness, unemployment, squalor, and ignorance," said the Leader of the National Party (Mr. Holland) in his policy speech last night. The party's administration, he said, should be gauged not by the sick people in hospital, but by the healthy people out of hospital— not by the number of people on social security, but by the number who were independent of State aid.

The way to deal with unemployment was to organise jobs, for work was far better than the dole. The way to deal with sickness was to prevent it. Pensions and subsidies were insufficient. Health was far better than sick benefits, yet no major attack had been made on the causes of sickness. Sickness claims had increased from 17,800 in 1939-40 to 26,743 in 1942-43, and tjie average number of patients in hospital throughout 1942-43 was 19,450. The war had disclosed that New Zealand was a class two nation. Of the 60,000 men who enlisted, 17,000 were unfit for service, and of the 233,000 called in ballots, 122,000 were grade one, and one-quarter of the total*men examined were in grades three and four. .

A start would be made by the National Party in the schools. The proposal was to extend the Plunket system through the kindergarten stage and to strengthen the school medical system to provide for two examinations annually, also one X-ray examination annually A remedial treatment scheme would be introduced as soon as possible, and dental benefits were proposed under the Social Security Act. The country could not afford not to attack sickness.