King Country Chronicle Wednesday, July 19, 1911. A COTTAGE HOSPITAL.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 379, 19 July 1911, Page 4

King Country Chronicle Wednesday, July 19, 1911. A COTTAGE HOSPITAL.

The painful circumstances surrounuing the treatment meted out to the victim of Sunday's shooting, accident on arrival at Te Kuiti on Monday night have aroused a strong feeling in this part of the King Country that some organised move should bo made to provide a shelter for wounded or suffering persons brought in from the backblocks for conveyance, by rail from Te Kuiti to Hamilton. It is a monstrous commentary on our civilisation that after twenty-live hours' travel through the bush and over the abominable apologies for roads that disgrace many parts of the district, that; there should be no available public institution in which to give temporary shelter to the wounded man. Mr O'D wyer's letter in another column and the subscription list which has been opened at the instigation of several settlers, and now published, are two signs of the intense feeling that exists in connection with the matter. What we really need is a small cottage hospital in Te Kuiti, where a trained nurse could be in attendance and minister to the needs of such sufferers as required to be brought to the town. Very serious cases, would, of course be afterwards conveyed to the Waikato Hospital, hut the district is too unwieldy and extensive to expect that one centralised institution can reasonably hope to cater for the needs of our fast-growing population. It was only the other week that a record number of beds were occupied at the Waikato Hospital, amounting to over one hundred. As population continues to grow members of the Hoard w'll have to face either an extension of the central buildings, or decentralisation, by supporting local efforts in the direction of a cottage hospital. The latter proposal seems to us the preferable one. If all the prospective patients lived on the railway line the difficulty might not be so urgent. But when settlers are brought in from thirty and forty miles back, and no facilities exist for their reception at Te Kuiti, beyond what private hospitality extends, the J matter assumes a different aspect, j No words can adequately describe the j difficulties of such a journey as that j taken on Sunday and Monday, and the unselfish efforts of the suffering man's friends illustrate for all of us the strong bonds of sympathy that exists when the sick or wounded need help and succour.