Untitled

Hokitika Guardian, 14 July 1933, Page 4

In an address given to the Congress of the Royal Institute of Public Health in niondon recently, Lord Leverhuime said that influenza and the common cold, accounted for between 30 per cent and 50 per cent of absente&isn in industry in an average year. There was an idea in some people’s minds that to stay away from .work owing to a cold was a- sign of weakness but, too often, in displaying their own determination they overlooked its effect upon others. The question of payment on wages during absence through sickness obviously played an important part in determining whether a worker stopped away or not. Lord Leverlndme believed that a generous view of this question generally paid in the long run. Protection against the common cold could be increased by educative measures and the use of disinfectants. His own firm was trying the experiment of issuing a daily dose of vitamin extract to a section of office workers> but the experiment had riot been in operation long enugh for conclusive results to be obtained. Sickness claims under the National Health Insurance Scheme for the first eight weeks of 1933 were £1,000,000 in excess,of the corresponding period for 1932 and that could be traced as almost entirely due to the influenza epidemic. He quoted the medical officer of his own firm’s largest factory, Dr H. L. Garson as follows“ Until some definite preventive measures against influenza are discovered the only hope seems to lie in treating it as scarlet fever or other infectious diseases are treated, by preventing the infected person coming t,o work. Influenza would undoubtedly be decreased to a very large extent, oven in an epidemic year if the population would realise that they are doing far more damage by coming to work and spreading the disease than by staying away and isolating themselves as far as possible.”