On This Day, 29 August 1918

Birmingham Daily Post 

Thursday 29 August 1918

CARE AND TRAINING OF DISABLED SOLDIERS

WHAT IS BEING DONE IN BIRMINGHAM

WORK IN A WIDE FIELD

Training Disabled Men.

This article must necessarily be brief. So it will be well at once to get a grip on a few salient facts and figures. Since the war began 14,600 Birmingham men have been discharged as disabled or physically unfit up to June last. Of this number 5,543 have been treated either as in-patients or outpatients, by arrangement made between the Citizens’ Committee (which is the local War Pensions Committee) and the civil hospitals, the V.A.D. hospitals, convalescent homes, and the Special Pensioners’ Hospital, to which last-named institution reference will be made later. Of this number about 4,000 have been discharged in as good a condition as it is possible to make them. Speaking generally, a thousand men are always under treatment locally. Of the number who have passed through local institutions close upon a thousand have received training to undertake work in various callings, and it is estimated that about 800 have thus been converted into useful and self-supporting citizens. These results are of a highly gratifying character, and are eloquent of the work done by the Citizens’ Committee and the generous response made by employers and others appealed to for assistance.

It is quite a common thing for an ex-soldier’s disability to be of such a character, owing to the loss of limbs or other causes, that it is impossible for him to resume his pre-war occupation on discharge from a hospital. The Pensions Committee thereupon step in and do all they can to fit him to find other occupation. With this object courses of training for various trades and callings are arranged. Birmingham, with its infinite variety of industries, affords excellent opportunities in this connection. Where permissible actual training may begin in a hospital or convalescent home—Highbury is an example of this – but generally, military and some medical authorities either look askance at the two things running together or lack of funds to equip workshops constitutes a fatal objection. A man having been discharged from the army is invited to go to the Council House, where his wishes with regard to future employment are ascertained and his case considered by the Training Sub-committee, whose members include representatives of almost every large trade in the district and of various trade unions. The choice of training is a wide one. Arranged alphabetically, it runs from accountancy to silversmith’s work. In fact, training may had almost in any walk of life—art metal work, architectural drawing, badge and button-making, basket-making, bootmaking and repairing, brasswork, cabinet-making, carpentry, cinematography, dental mechanics, diamond cutting, electrical engineering, leather work, down piano-tuning and printing.

CARE OF WIDOWS AND DEPENDENTS    

The work the committee do in seeing that a discharged man has what is due to him by way of a pension needs only to be mentioned. Incidentally, if should be pointed out that the 27s. 6d., plus children’s allowances, in the case of a totally disabled man is only the flat rate, and that any man who can prove that he earned more before the war is entitled to receive an alternative pension up to a maximum of 75s. a week. The duty of looking after wives, widows, and dependants of serving soldiers and sailors is also discharged by the committee, and is probably well known. It is, however, not so well known that training can be provided in suitable trades and professions, free of charge, for young widows who are in good health and have young children to care for. Through their visitors, the committee get into personal touch with the wives, widows, and mothers of soldiers, and are ready to help them in their domestic difficulties with advice and encouragement. Such real practical help as caring for the children when the mother has to go to hospital is often called for. An especially interesting part of the work of the Citizens’ Committee is the care of the motherless children. Personal attention is given to each case, and the children arranged for in a way which seems to give the best prospects for the child’s future happiness and well-being. Special arrangements have been made with homes and orphanages, and a large number of children are most happily boarded out in the suburbs and the country until such time as the soldier shall be able to make a home for them again. For those motherless children whose fathers have been killed the Citizens’ Committee make permanent provision and accept entire responsibility.