THE INJURED WORKMAN
SIR,—In your News of the Week you say "In cases of total or prolonged disability there will be medical assessment, as in the case of war injuries, of the degree of disablement, and pensions granted from 4os. a week (with los for a wife, and 7s. 6d. for the first child) downwards. Employers will no longer have to insure against workmen's compensation risks, and a mass of vexatious controversy over payments will be obviated. These are notable proposals and deserve unqualified welcome."
Notable perhaps, but with all respect, not deserving of unqualified welcome. The amount suggested is hopelessly inadequate for a miner who has had his spine fractured by a fall of roof, and in consequence has become permanently paralysed below the waist. Such a man requires skilled nursing and attention for the rest of his days, and can only obtain these in a special Hospital Home such as one that I know of where the minimum charge is 65s. a week, even though the house itself has been provided privately.
I have recently been able to send two paralysed miners to this Home, paying the charges out of a sum collected by my wife and self for another miner, who unfortunately died. The weekly compensation these men get has to be used to keep their wives and children ; it is only just enough for them. It cannot possibly cover the cost of main- tenance of the injured men. These proposals, therefore, must surely be altered to deal adequately with these terrible cases, whose actual symptoms I refrain from describing in full.—Yours, etc.,
Stoke-on-Trent. Hilltop House, Quarry Avenue, Hartshill, Stoke-on-Trent.
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