MILITARY HOSPITALS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 249, 15 July 1919, Page 5

MILITARY HOSPITALS

PROVISION FOR CONSUMPTIVE MEN -CASES TO LEAVE FEATHERSTON Tho new sanatorium for soldiers at Waipulciirau, llntrko's Bay, will be ready for occupation at the end of next month. Tho completion of this institution. which will provide accommodation for about one hundred and fifty returned soldiers who are suffering from tubercular trouble, has been delayed by shortuse of labour. The military sanatorium on Cashmere Hills, Christchurch, will be ready to receive'patients next week. It will have accommodation for fifty men at once, and for an additional ' fifty men later.

The Director-General of Medical f Sertubercnlar trouble, added General M'Gavtold a Dominion reporter yesterday that the : hospital ship Mamma, which will be coming south from Auckland this week, would lake some tubercular eases from Cambridge Sanatorium and Foatherston Military Hospital to the Cashmere Hills Sanatorium. All tho tubercular cases would bo evacuated from Featherston. When the military sanatoria at "Waipukurau and Cashmere Hills were cornDieted there would be sufficient accommodation for all the returned soldiers requiring treatment of the kind provided at tho.se institutions. Some advanced cases were not suitable for sanatorium treatment. and would be retained in other hospitals. Some returned men suffering from tubercular trouble, aded General M'Gavin, would go to their own homes after the medical authorities were assured that the conditions were suitable. These men would first enter a sanatorium and receive a course of educational treatment, in order that they might understand how to promote their own recovery and protect other people from danger of infection. The Department was prepared to supply open-air shelters for the use of such men at their own homes. The Director-General of Medical Services mentioned that each of .the njilitarv sanatoria would be under the control of a medical officer who had receive! special training for the work in the United Kingdom. Difficulty was being experienced at the present time in securing efficient orderlies for the military hospitals and sanatoria. Preference was given to returned soldiers in employment of this kind, but he realised that the service hatl not always been entirely satisfactory. He hoped soon to be able to replace the orderlies to a large extent with returned nurses and V.A.D.'s. This arrangement would relieve the Medical Department of one of the disabilities under which it had been working.