THE MEDICALLY UNFIT.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 284, 15 June 1917, Page 4 (Supplement)

THE MEDICALLY UNFIT.

Tlio responsibility resting on the Government in respect of men found to bo unfit after enlistment, was recently mentioned by the British Minister of Pensions, Mr G. X. Barnes. As tlw question s one of considerable nnmi-nt to N'c.v Zealand, and is attracting n good deal of attention jir-t now, the views of the British Minister are particularly interesting. Remarking th't there were ovc- 100,000 "medically unfit" in Britain, Mr Barnes said it had been argued very plausibly that, inasmuch as the doctors had passed tli 'in in. they were fit for service, and therefore for a pension. But they wo'iid not get it while he was in office. These men had I icon passed into the army owing to the great pressure at which doctors had to work in ihe early davp. Hundreds of them were veritable weeds that ought never to have been tliere at all. Some of them concealed their ailments when they were oxarn'ned, and thousands of them did not do more than two or three days' service. But, allowing for all that, the Stito must assume some responsibility because the doctors had passed them. But the measure of its responsibility was by no means anything like a pension for the'r lives. What was proposed was to put them back where the State found them, and he thought that was sufficient. In exceptional cases, where 1 man's disease had been accelerated by the war, there would lie .1 gratuity of £IOO, but that would be an exceptional oas«. great bulk of them would be disposed of by a gratuity of a 6mall amount according to a scale which had b A cn drawn up. Ill's, in our opin'on, is a sensible view. It admits the responsibility of the Government up to a reasonable point, but declines to allow the State to be burdened with the liability of a. let of unearned and undeserved pen-ions. That men who have been wrongly or mistakenly passed by the rodical board-. should be "put where the State found them." or, in other words, that as far as possible they should be saved from hardship cr loss consequent on the mistake that has been made, is a fair propos'tion, providing always that the responsibility for the mistake does not re-t with the 'men themselves. Every man who goes before a medical board should be called up in to make a sworn declaration as 00 its freedom from any ailment or disability likely 'o incapacitate him for service as a soldier, and the*making of this declaration should be preceded ~>v a definite warning that in the event of 1 his failure to disclose such facts, and his inability to disprove the reasonable assumption that he must have been aware of them at the time of his examination by the medical board, or tint his disability was cf such a nature tli't it could, and should, have been discovered by the examining officers, he will be disqualified for any claim to pens'on or other compensation in the event of his rejection as unfit during the period of training. The only objection which can be urged to this reasonable precaution is a sentimental one, viz , tha'. a man is naturally reluctant to make known his medical history for feir it should lie said that by so doing he was trying to shirk his duty. This obiection, however, would cea~o to hold goid the moment its application was made compulsory. The declaration would simply draw the attention of the medical board to an ailment or defect which it might otherwise have overlooked. and it would then be for the board to accept the responsibility of saying whether or not the man was fit for rcrvKe, and to this end it would, of course, make proper inquiry into lus medical history. The precaution we have suggested m ght not complete!'.-so'-e the problem. Some percentage of camp rejections is inevitable under any system of medical examination, desp to all possible precautions. But ev-'-rything that can he done should be don" to keep the percentage down to tho irreducible minimum. It has to bo remembered tint thousands of men who are now 011 active service will, when tho war is over, resume their places .n civd life, and, as taxpayers, become contributors to the pensions b'll. Thev will gr idtro 110 sacrifice, howe-er heavy, so long as it is to provide adequately for the dependant* of there who hav fallen, or for comrades who have been incapacitated bv wounds er sickness, but they w'H naturally object to having th»'r burden increased bv the payment of pensions to men who have s~on no service and who ought never to have been sent to camn.