DISABLED MEN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 June 1943, Page 4

DISABLED MEN

RE-ESTABLISHMENT LEAGUE CONFERENCE

ADDRESSF.O BY PREMIER. TRAINING & EMPLOYMENT. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. Addressing the annual conference of the Disabled Service Men’s Re-estab-lishment League, which assembled today, the Prime Minister (Mr Fraser) said that up to March 31 last 3,568 disability cases —that was to say, men who did not regain full employability after normal convalescence —passed through lhe hands of the Rehabilitation Board. Of those men who had returned from overseas, 1,190 were already working or otherwise established in civil life. Of 1682 who had seen service in New Zealand, only 1,269 had been established in civil life.

In all larger hospitals, and at Hamner and Rotorua, occupational therapy tuition had been given to disabled men. This had been invaluable in hastening a readjustment to new situations and the tuition had been continued with the men in recuperative employment specially selected by officers of the .Rehabilitation Board or the Disabled Service Men’s Re-establishment League. Mr Fraser said the Rehabilitation Board was conducting an industrial survey to find openings suitable for disabled men, and when the survey had been completed employers would be asked to reserve such positions for them. Suitable positions in various State services would also be reserved for disabled men.

Mr Fraser als'o spoke of the establishment of training centres and their work, and mentioned incidentally that in future the manufacture of artificial limbs would be carried out in the Wellington Training Centre and fitting rooms and repair workshops, and possibly manufacturing facilities, would be established in the other main centres.