BOUND HOME.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1916, 17 December 1918, Page 3

BOUND HOME.

THE RETURNING TRANSPORTS

SYSTEM OF DISCHARGE DE-

SCRIBED,

Over two thousand New Zealand invalided soldiers are nearing the Dominion on transports, and will have the’ pleasure of spending Christmas among their friends, unless their ailments are too serious to permit discharge before hospital treatment.

First for return are the hospital cases and convalescents. Then will come the men who are still lit. At present, the Defence Department lias to prepare for the invalids, and for this reason the new system of facilitating discharge straight from the ship’s side will not be possible.

So the friends of the men who aye returning between now and December 22ml will have to exercise a few hours’ patience after the transport’s arrival, to enable soldier relatives to he properly equipped with warrants for their privileges, and to he medically and dentally overhauled before returning to civil life. This process in some of the Dominions involves a stay in a demobilisation cauup or leave with the obligation to report to a Defence office for medical boarding, a procedure which will be completed in connection with the men returning here this month on hoard the vessel upon their arrival. But an improved system is being adopted which can be worked when the lit men commence to return.

Captain Bartlett, formerly of Base Records, Wellington, who recently returned to England for further active service, and Sergl.Major Gardiner, tfrho for several years was the N.C.O. in charge of the medical hoarding of returned soldiers in Wellington, are to he at the disposal of General Richardson in London for (he purpose of instructing staffs which will he sent out with each transport to deal with the returning soldiers en route, enabling them to disembark on arrival without any delay, whilst hoarding arrangements are being carried out as at present.

As is the ease at present, it will not, under this system, he necessary for a returned man to again go near a Defence Office after leaving the vessel. He may have to return certain articles of kit which he will want for a time, hut he can send them back by post. The new scheme provides for the holding of Demobilisation Boards on returning transports prior to arrival in New Zealand. Detailed instructions have been printed and sept to England, showing how the soldier’s medical papers have lo he prepared, how his denial examination and treatment is to he undertaken, (he medical hoarding, issue of hospital treatment certificates for use after arrival, discharge of, tit men, the provision of leave on pay and a four weeks’ free railway pass, notification to uexl-of-kin that he is about to arrive, and preparation of pension claim where this is necessary. There is a good deal lo do for each individual soldier, hut under this system the staff will have the whole period of the voyage for the work, and will he detailed specially for it, with no other duties to disti’aet them. It is intended to establish a training school in England for the instruction of suitable men, who will come out as the Demobilisation Staff, and he discharged with (lie other soldiers on (lie transport,, upon their arrival. No expense will thus he incurred in sending stalls of (rained men backwards and forwards, doing nothing during the .journey to England. An experiment was made to ascertain if an officer used lo military form could pick up the duties from the printed instructions. Ho did so in a few hours, and carried through a sample demobilisation quite correctly. Tims it is assumed that only a few days’ training yvill he needed to make the Demohili.Jation Staff efficient.

But there is an important element which has needed special attention —that of the medical standard to be observed in classifying the returned men, “Doctors differ,” it is said, and this must be rceognised. "Where one medico would discharge a man with provision for out-pati-ent treatment at a hospital, another would order him to become an inpatient. And (here are differences of practice or opinion in regard to the degree of disability. For these reasons it is highly important that each transport should have on board for purposes of medical 'classification, medical men who are. familiar with the , New Zealand standard of treatment. There has not yet been sufficient time to arrange for the supply of medical men with this experience, hut before the tit men commence to embark this will have been arranged, and the system of returning our men who have so worthily done their part in the victorious struggle should be* smooth-working, and free from delay when the men come in sight of home.