B.C. STILL. WITHOUT HEALTH INSURANCE AFTER 20 YEARS OF COMMISSIONS .

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| contain at least 60 percent

WOMEN'S

‘news and views

ime ' t

Mie EC

Next year all bread must carry a label stating its ingredients.

AFTER NEXT MONTH

All bread must have labels
stating ingredients used.

HOUSEWIVES can look for-
ward to the new year when all
bread must bear labels indicat-
ing what ingredients have been
used in making it. The seven
main types of bread include
whole wheat, enriched white,
enriched Vitamin B white, Can-
ada improved Vitamin B white,
brown, white and raisin.

The most nutritious will be
whole wheat bread which must

whole wheat flour under the
new regulations. Enriched white
bread is a fairly new kind of
bread and contains about as
much’ thiamin, iron, riboflavin
and niacin as whole wheat

bread. It must also contain at
least two percent dried skim
_ milk.

ed in the loaf. Plain white
bread may still be made of oat-
meal or soybean flour, but must
not contain more than five per

Canada improved Vitamin B.
white bread must be made of
Canada improved flour. Plain
brown bread can be made of
whole wheat flour or may be
just colored ‘with caramel or
molasses, but the label must
state what percentage of the

_ above ingredients are contain-

Raisin bread will have a few
more raisins in it when Janu
ary rolls around and the young-
sters won’t have to fight over
-who gets them. In the future,
raisin bread must contain at
least five ounces of raisins or
currents or both per loaf.

cent of these types of flour. .

STANTON, MUNRO & DEAN”

Barristers - Solicitors - Notaries
SUITE 515 FORD BUILDING 193 E. HASTINGS
: (Corner Main & Hastings Sts.) _

MARINE 5746

‘expressed in definite terms.

-Tuary 11,

‘surance and Maternity

.

“THE ERA of freedom will be achieved only as social security
and human welfare become the main concern of men and nations.
It is necessary that social security and human welfare should be

Of the kind of objectives I have in

mind, I would merely mention the following as a national mini-
mum: useful employment for all those willing to-work, standards
of nutrition and housing adequate to ensure the health of the whole
population, social insurance against privations resulting from un-

of
and

accident, death
ill health

employment,
the breadwinner,
old age.” ;

These were very fine words that
Prime Minister MacKenzie King
spoke to the annual convention
of the American Federation of
Labor on October 9, 1942, in To-
ronto, but ten years-later King’s
successor tells us that we can’t
have ‘health insurance because
Canada is short of hospital beds,
and the Liberal government spends’
the nation’s money on armaments
regardless of the nation’s health,
welfare and security.

In B.C. we have witnessed
countless meetings, hearings, re-
ports and briefs on the subject of
health insurance, we have spent
thousands of dollars for ‘commis-
sions, Royal Commissions and pub-
lic hearings, and in 1988 we even

_ voted for it, yet after 20 years

of such public demand we still
haven’t got it.

Is such legislation so strange
and revolutionary then, that the
government cannot undertake such
a plan? Just take a look at the
progress report presented on Feb-
1930, by the Royal
Commission on State, Health In-
Benefits
set up by the B.C. government in
April, 1929.

The commission quotes Dr. J.
W. S. McCullough, chief health

‘officer for Ontario, who shows in’

his survey (1927) that sickness
in Canada costs individuals $276,-
000,000 a year. Add to this the
loss of prospective earning pow-
er through premature deaths and
you have a total of $1,311,060,448
as the annual loss due to sickness.
At that time the estimated ag-
gregate of federal, provincial and
municipal public health expend-
itures in Canada was $5,454,529.
Bear in mind that the cost of be-
ing sick has doubled or tripled
since 1927.
* * ~
THIS SHOWS the need in dol-

~ lars and cents, but let’s look at it

from the ordinary person’s point
of view, what sickness means in
a very practical sense. Listen to
the evidence, reported to the Royal
Commission, in regard to the need
for maternity care alone. —

Mrs. Hodgson, Vancouver: It is
impossible for the majority of
families today to pay $35 a week
for trained nurses and few fami-
lies can put down $25 before the
mother can go to hospital. It
seems to me an outrage that a
women cannot have proper care

and treatment during such a crisis -

as maternity.
Mrs. Manifold, Women’s Navy
League: Not so long ago in our

‘own neighborhood there was @

woman who had no money at all.
Her baby died because she was
undernourished and did not have
medical attention. There are lots
of women where that has happen-
ed with the husband out of work
and the mother insufficiently fed.

Dr. A. G. Price, Medical Health
Officer, Victoria: One of the great
advantages of this (insurance)
scheme should be the inclusion of
maternity benefits. I have known
case after case of| operations be-
ing ‘brought on, abortion opera-
tions, not because of the fear of
the pains of labor, because of
the dread that ‘there was not
enough money to sustain the ex-
pense of such an event. I haye
known case after case “here such
things have happened. . . . I think
that maternity benefits should con-

stitute the most important part of
any thoroughly useful state health
insurance system.

And so it went on, day after
day, the evidence piled up before
the commission showing in terms
of human lives how badly we need-
ed health insurance. Of nearly
300 witnesses heard only one was
absolutely opposed and that was
the representative of the Pruden-
tial Insurance Company of Am-
erica.

Finally, in January, 1932, after
spending over $24,000 the Royal

Commission made up of C. F._

Davie, George Pearson, L. Bor-
den, J. J. Gilles, MD, and W. F.
Kennedy, brought in its. recom-
mendations. A brief summary of
the main points included a system
of compulsory health insurance
and maternity benefits to be est-
ablished at an early date in B.C.
with provision for general medical
and surgical treatment including
necessary pharmaceutical supplies

St. Laurent hedges on health plan held out by King

CCW. secretary

» Mrs. Ethel Genkind (above) of
Toronto is the new national execu-

tive secretary of the Congress of
Canadian Women. She was elect-
éd at the Conference of Canadian
Women held in Toronto last month
and attended by 200 delegates and
observers.

Mrs. Jackson to report at fea

.

MRS. AGNES Jaskson, secre-
tary of the B.C. Provincial Coun-
cil of the Congress of Canadian
Women, will report on the Na-
tional Conference of Canadian Wo-
men held recently in Toronto, at
a tea to be held this Saturday af-
ternoon, November 8, in the can-
teen of Pender Auditorium. Mrs.
Jackson, who was elected a na-
tional vice-president of the Can-

adian Congress of Women, will
discuss the deliberations of the
conference and will speak on the
campaign for a national health
plan. Mrs. Doris Hartley will also
report on the CCW delegation
which met with the provincial cab-
inet this week. All members and

friends are urged to attend this
tea.

and surgical appliances, hospitaliz-
ation and maternity benefits. They
also recommended cash _ benefits
for each day’s incapacity of not
less than one dollar a day. :

Three years later, in the depth
of the depression,
Health Minister G. M. Weir pre-
sented a draft bill on health in-
surance which was to serve as a
basis for discussion in the House
and for the public. His recom-
mendations were much the same as
those of the Royal Commission. but
included limited nursing services
in the home as requisitioned by
the doctor,:and also limited dental
services primarily of a prevent-
ive nature. He suggested cash
benefits after a seven day waiting
period at a rate of 50 percent of
the insured person’s full time daily
wage, but not to exceed $10’ per
week.

His scheme was to be financed
by collecting two percent of the
employer's payroll and three per-
eent of the employee’s wages. The

Mrs. Jackson speaks
to Trail auxiliary

MRS. AGNES Jackson of Van-
couver, delegate to the recent na-
tional conference of the Congress
of Canadian Women in Toronto,
spoke to a_ special meeting of
Mine-Mill ladies’ auxiliary, local
131, at the Labor Centre in Trail
on Thursday last week.

The conference, said Mrs. Jack-
son, passed resolutions calling for
a cease-fire in Korea, the return
home of Canadian soldiers, better
housing plans, lower living costs
and better educational facilities
and nurseries for underprivileged
and mentally retarded children.

provincial -

province would meet half the cost —
of administering the act provided
the amount was not greater than
$1,200,000,
Once again hearings had to be
held, and a year and 139 briefs
later the Hearings Committee
made-up of Percy Bengough,.
Grace Fairley, RN, A. G. Fleming,
MD, E. W. Neel and A. Peebles,
Ph.D. brought in its report. The
report cut down on the suggested
services considerably and recom-
mended no cash benefits at all.

Finally, the people were asked
to vote on a most ambiguously
worded plebiscite, but confused
as the whole situation had become, _
the. majority.of people voted for _
it. At this point the doctors went
on strike, and wanted nothing to
do With such a scheme. This held
up action until the war put such
things as health in the background.

There is no point in reviewing
what has taken place in the past
‘five years—we are all ‘too well
aware of what happened to the
wonderful plans for health insur-
ance. All we have now is an in-
surance scheme for hospitals, and

Health and Welfare Minister Eric

‘Martin need not go on another

merry-go-round tour of the prov-
ince to find out why people aren’t
paying up. The simple fact is
that the people of B.C. said what
they wanted and needed, and they
didn’t get it. And woe betide any
government that fails to give it
to them.—BETTY GRIFFIN.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — NOVEMBER 7, 1952 — PAGE’ 11