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Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 146, 7 November 1912, Page 4

THE BACKBLOCKS,

The report of the Inspector-General of Hospitals is generally a fairly illuminative document, although it has a habit of being a good deal more comprehensively theoretical than intensely practical. It has been awaited with mor*e than usual attention this year in Taranaki, mainly oil account of-the promises foreshadowed in the Budget that some extra help was to be granted to the backblocks settlers in the matter of medical assistance. The position of these people is no easy one. They have gone out into the wilderness to hew themselves a home amid discomforts and unpleasantness that would make the ordinary average city-dweller pale with apprehension, and while they admittedly do this for their own ultimate benefit, it has to be remembered that every acre they break out from the virgin bush, every rod of road they build, and elery two blades of grass they make to grow where one grew originally, are so many additional assets to our national credit. The'report is not as satisfactory'as we could -have wished it to be. It suggests that the hospital boards should consider putting into operation a subsidised medical service for the benefit of settlers in the more remote country districts, and thus-in .some measure requite settlers for the expense they are put to in maintaining a system in the benefits - of which they can hardly participate to the same extent as the town dweller. "It is," continues the report,' "undoubtedly the duty of either the boards or the Government to ensure that even in the ■most remote parts of the Dominion medical service is available, which is .not only within the means of the less well-to-do, but also that the service in question is reliable arid -efficient. A subsidised service for the backblocks could be put into operation with .little or no alteration in hospital machinery, and if administered with discretion it would not prove a costly venture, provided that ; all persons receiving its benefits were made to pay, as is' now the case with patients admitted to our hospitals, according to their means." Nobody cam take exception to the admirable suggestions contained in the report, but what we are exercised with is whether they, are to be given effect to, and, if so, when? It is easy to propound pretty theories, but the settlers out back, while vastly appreciating them, would much prefer an ounce of practice. They want some definite assurance of comparative safety to their wives and children in time of sickness and tribulation, and with the Government hastening to adjourn Parliament at the earliest opportunity this week, it does not look as if anything very definite in the way of legislation can -lie expected this session. Of course, the matter can be dealt with by Order-in-Council or by regulation by the Cabinet, and it is perfectly certain that the House would never.object to any authorised expenditure the Government might chonse to make in this direction. The main point is that the matter must not be lost sight of. The Government's own experts . have decided that medical help should be available to the settlers out back, as well as to the poor of our cities, and it is the obvious and emphatic duty of the Government to see that these recommendations are given effect to, even if it means that the average citizen has to pay a few more pence per year in taxation. Nobody would grudge such an expenditure, for no man knows when liis own necessity may arise, and a payment of this character simply means, when it is all washed up, a cheap form of insurance against need and illness. If men and women are doing work in the wilderness for the town dwellers, it is distinctly up to those town dwellers to see that that work is done under the least possible harassing conditions.