A HOSPITAL AT TAIHAPE.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIII, Issue 9096, 16 March 1908, Page 4

A HOSPITAL AT TAIHAPE.

SIR.—It was with great pleasure your many readers on the Main Trunk line read your leader in favour of some means of granting : first aid to sufferers in the northern : end of Eangitikei, It passes the understanding of many why the erection of a hospital at Taihape should meet with such opposition. I believe that most of the said opposition is horn of ignorance of the great need for such an institution. If those who champion such opposition only knew even what little I do of the unnecessary suffering caused by the long train journey before reaching a hospital they would reconsider their decision. I have helped to carry men all broken to pieces and their fellows have done what little they could to relieve ' their awful sufferings—all the while 1 cursing the fates that there was not some hospital nearer to send them to. One case in particular I remember of a young chap carried out of the bush by his mates—ill with some fever. He was sent on to Wanganui, hut the journey was too much for him and before he reached Marton ‘ the death dew was on his brow. That day I cursed those who have opposed such a haven of rest, for I think that young man might have had a chance if he could have been - attended to and not moved! My pen ■ is not graphic enough to make your 1 blood 'run cold with the different ' cases of suffering that have come . under my personal notice during the few years that I have been going to and fro on this line, but my Jword I wish it was, for it is when a person comes face to face with it that yon realise what a power of good such an institution would-be. Fancy having to take a man over 100 miles before he finds rest. It is only a constitution of iron that can stand such treatment. I sometimes wish that those who oppose the proposition would get broken up somewhere ’ about Raetihi and have to put up with the agony and suffering of that 130 mile journey to a hospital. I’ll warrant they would change their opinions once and for all. L Trusting that these few lines may help somewhat towards the immediate erection of a hospital somewhere in the northern end of Rangi- ■ tikei. —I am, etc., “NOT A STRANGER.’’ ,