FOR CRIPPLED CHILDREN

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5327, 13 February 1947, Page 4

FOR CRIPPLED CHILDREN

WITH the appointment of a full-time welfare officer for the Rotorua, Taupo, Whakatane and Opotiki districts, the work of the New Zealand Crippled Children Society will go forward with renewed ; impetus. The special part that Rotorua can play in assisting these youngsters to economic • and a degree of social independence has been acknowledged in the announcement that a home for spastic cases, in the medical treatment of which water therapy plays an important part, is to be set up here. The Rotorua braneh will thus have a special interest to watch over, in addition to its general activities in aiding the children to become as far as possible,*" self-supporting. Auckland will be the centre for vocational training and remedial gymnastics and the Wilson Home, at Takapuna, will be enlarged and used as a convalescent depot. One of the new amenities at the home, for which a contract has been let, will be an electric escaIator to convey patients to and from the bea'ch below. It. ivs worth noting that the society, which until two,years ago, had susbsisted entirely on unsolicited donations, is not in receipt of a Government subsidy. This is the more remarkable when it is remembered that every success achieved with its proteges relieves the Social Security funds of the necessity for paym^nt of an invalidity pension.