The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1920. HOSPITAL CARNIVAL WEEK.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 3602, 14 October 1920, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1920. HOSPITAL CARNIVAL WEEK.

With which is incorporated “The Taihape Post and Waimarino News ” ,

The Taihape district is in extreme need of many hospital appliances which no hospital hoard could very well he expected -to proivdo for a cottage hospital within Its hospital district, and it is in this fact is discovered the anomaly. Because a thousand pounds worth of hospital equipment is urgently required, and because the people of Taihape have now sht out to raise the thousand pounds without any help from the hospital board it is patent that Taihape has passed that stage when a cottage hospital ceased “to be able to furnish the hospital service such a large and~rapidly expanding territory should have if a humane value is to be given to life and health. During two seasons of epidemic more than one motor car was constantly engaged removing :patients from either home to hospital, hospital to home, from hospital to hospital, or with appalling frequency from hospital and from home to the morgue. The truth has been welldriven homo'into Taihape people that a saving of a quarter of' an hour, even in transit of a case means the saving of a life. Associating that fact with the fact that in the well-advanced pioneering territory of which Taihape is the centre, accidents are frequent, in sawmilling, in ordinary pioneering work, and also along' the most difficult section of the Main Trunk railway, perhaps, in the whole of New Zealand, something more than a cottage hospital is needed. It is a r egrettahle memory which recalls the fact that the Wanganui Hospital and Charitable (?) Aid Board persistently opposed a hospital being placed in Taihape at all; it is a regrettable coincidence, perhaps, that the Board, after realising there was extreme need for a hospital in Taihape, has persistently kept it down to the level of a mere cottage hospital, and it is still regrettable that the Board has persistently failed to raise the Taihape hospital to the level of a base hospital. Although the residents and settlers of the Taihape territory were surprised and disappointed with the attitude of the Board they quietly went to work and subscribed the money to build their hospital and‘now a scheme is being put into action to raise from the pockets of residents and settlers another thousands pounds to purchae that modern hospital equipment people recognise as being long overdue to the unfortunate amongst them. The most unreasonable opponent of hospital service extension cannot say that time has not overwhelmingly established the fact that a hospital was not only needed in Taihape hut also that it was a very urgent requirement. The several extensions to the building are corroborative evidence that is undeniable. In common practice it may invariably be taken that when settlers of any district provide the money for hospital .service from their private pockets over and above the taxation they pay for hospitals and their upkeep, they are unshakeably convinced that those services cannot, in common humanity, be longer withheld. Taihape furnishes a case in point, and without a suspicion of qualification we can state that a more generous, thoughtful, and humane body of settlers is not findable in any other part of the Dominion. Whether the cal] upon them be for patriotic purposes, for returned soldiers' for public weal, for an unfortunate deserving individual, and even in preventing a fel'lowman with a noble past, resting in a pauper’s 1 grave, there is widespread and prompt'Tcsponse. Taihape settlers raised the money to build their own hospital, and now they are going to subscribe the money to make it capable of saving a greater ] percentage of the lives entrusted to it. A motor ambulance, freezing apparatus, sterilising and other hospital equipment ia admittedly wanted, and public meetings have appointed a large and representative committee to organise means of raising the money. It is understood that, a ‘‘Hospital Carnival Week 1 ’ is to be held, commencing on .Monday, Ist November. Attractive programmes for each day and each evening have been arranged, if intelligently and unselfishly carried out there can be no doubt about the ultimate success. Surely it can no longer be justly contended that the people who hmld their own hospital and fin£ the i money from time to time to keep it up in accordance with modern hospital equipment, should be refused fhe right to manage it. in accordance with that degree of effectiveness indicated by the donations made from their pii-

vatc resources, However, what matters most in the immediate future is the* success of the project for help Which has been initiated. A “Hospital Carnival Week” is to be during which every possible device for entertainment will be exploited in aid of the unfortunate sick and injured of the community, and if the thousand pounds raised only saves one life to a wife and children, no man will fe'cl the slightest regret at having grven as he could afford towards the means whereby that life was saved. But in addition to life-saving a motor ambulance will prevent incalculable suffering. It may safely be taken for granted. that the Tallfapc TTospitaT Motor Ambulance will shortly materialise.