Child poverty figures can be hard to believe. The very word poverty hardly seems appropriate for a country with New Zealand's welfare net. But as the Government conceded in the Budget this week, there is real hardship behind the statistics recording one in four children living in households receiving less than 60 per cent of the median household's income. If clear evidence is needed, consider the Middlemore Foundation's appeal for pyjamas.
The foundation raises funds for services provided by the Counties Manukau District Health Board. With so many needs pressing on the public health services of South Auckland it can safely be assumed the foundation will not be wasting its efforts and funds on additional hospital provisions that are merely nice to have.
Its pyjama appeal, supported by the Herald on Sunday, reflects a shocking fact: some kids lack even this most basic and inexpensive of possessions. It is not a trifling lack, especially as winter approaches. It is part of a problem of serious concern to the health authorities that these children are in households that cannot keep them warm.
Charity cannot pay the power bills but it can give them warm pyjamas. The Middlemore Foundation distributed 5400 pairs last year, often to children who had been in hospital with the respiratory illnesses and other conditions associated with cold and damp living conditions. They went home with a new pair of the soft, fluffy, brightly coloured pyjamas children love.
If other children in the house needed them, they got a pair too. The foundation does not limit its concern to patients of Middlemore's Kidz First Hospital. The providers of community health and social services load up their car boots with donated pyjamas when they go out on their daily rounds. "They all find a home," the foundation spokesman says in our feature today.
