OTAKI HEALTH CAMP

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 198, 19 May 1944, Page 4

OTAKI HEALTH CAMP

Prospects Of Re-opening Soon

LIST OF WAITING CHILDREN

There are prospects that the Otaki Health Camp, now being used to accommodate the Wellington Hospital’s chronic patients, will soon revert to its former use. This will be made possible by the transfer of the patients from Otaki to the Silverstream Hospital, .which is no. longer used lor the purpose lor whien it was built, the treatment_of„men^ < United States lorces.

No estimate of when the Silverstream Hospital will be put to its new use can be made. It is now in the possession of the Government, and though the Wellington Hospital Board has indicated in response to an inquiry by the Government its willingness to take over the buildings, negotiations as to terms and conditions are still proceeding. The board s intention is to use the buildings for chronic and long-stay patients of all classes., and the accommodation there for 400 patients will relieve wards at the Wellington Hospital as well as emptying the Otaki institution. Work to make the Silverstream buildings suitable for the boards purpose will take some weeks after the board has taken possession of them. Mr. C. Meachen, secretary of the Health Camp Association, said yesterday that the association was expecting an indication any time of when it could reoccupy the buildings at Otaki. The association expected to reopen the camp and nil it With 100 children soon after alternative accommodation had been provided for the patients there. Preliminary arrangeinputs were beinje made for staff and there was a large list of children waiting to be selected by the associations medical officer as suitable for terms in the camp. It was estimated that about four weeks would elapse between the removal of the hospital patients from Otaki and the use of the camp by children. A children’s health camp had not been held in the Wellington district since the temporary camp at Hokio in April, 1942, said Mr. Meachen. The armed forces hud possession of the other camps at Gisborne and ’Wanganui. The association understood that the Gisborne camp would perhaps be available for use by children next summer, but no news about the M nnganui camp had been received recently.