N.Z. SOLDIERS IN ENGLAND.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 May 1917, Page 7

N.Z. SOLDIERS IN ENGLAND.

HOSPITALS AND OTHER INSTITUTIONS. (.From. Capt. Malcolm Ross, War Cor'respondent with the N.Z. Forces). Northern France, Feb. 28. On going the round of tho New Zealand hospitah and institutions in England connected with tho war, the first, IWng that strikes one is v.hnt neither trouble nor expense has been spared to care for tho sick anil the wounded. This is as it should be, and the men themselves and their relatives in the Dominion will be grateful to the Government for all it has done in this respect. Of our three hospitals, No. 1 Cenc-ral at Broekenhurst is the biggest, employing 20 officers, other ranks, and 78 nurses. At the time of niv visit it contained 1130 patients—s2 officers and 780 other ranks. Next came the No. 2 General at Walton-on-Thames, with a staff of 16 officers, 35 other ranks, and 6G nurses. It held 1123 patients. The No. 3 Hospital at Codford had 410 patients, and there were 40 officers and. 141 other ranks in British hospitals. Quite recently there has been opened the No. 2 New Zealand General Hospital, Auxiliary As_, at Weybridge. Our hospitals and camps are distributed over a wide area, and this must lead to increased work in administration and increased cost, but apparently closer concentration was impossible, and we lhad to take what we could get in the way of sites and buildings. The buildings available have had to be adapted, while huts of large size have been built, and tents erected. The war has taught us one thing, namely, that it is no longer necessary to go to extremes in the cost of hospital-building. In a country like New Zealand the hut system might be largely adopted for ordinary hospital work, and the cost per bed to the taxpayer be tremendously xeduced. * J, .*l' ' «*■ CONVALESCENTS. •wV

Every hospital bed in (England will be .required during the strenuous fighting that everyone expects on the Western ,front during the coming spring and summer, and all the means at the command of the medical and military authorities will be requisitioned in getting the sick and wounded fit again. New Zealand has not been backward in these 'preparations. At Hornchurch there is quite a New Zealand colony, where our convalescents are being treated in the most scientific and llp-to-date manner. There any day you can see practised therapeutic treatment by mechanical exercises of a most interesting kind. In a wellfitted gymnasium squads come in in military formation, dissolve promptly into individual units, and aro immediately at work with many different exercises at ingenious appliances and machines to suit tho different cases. One man will fix himself in a machine that has a eliding seat and enables his muscles to get all the exercise that they would get in f; racing boat. Another mounts what vo all intents and .purposes is a bicycle., and finds his speed registered ona dial. An expert is battering away at a punching ball with the dexterity of a Jaok Johnson. Others are skipping, or working with dumb-bells. A soldier with flat foot will bo doing one series of exercises, a man with a stiff ankle •will fix his foot in a small machine by means of which he can accomplish a rotary movement that will bring certain muscles and ligaments into action with a view to a cure in the quickest possible time. Day by day, hour by hour, this exercising goes on, and the results are truly wonderful. The men are housed largely in comfortable huts and a few double tents comfortably warmed by stoves. Additional huts are being erected to house 'five hundred convalescents. This will enable the authorities to 'be ready for any emergency in the near future. The amenities have not been forgotten at these little New Zealand colonies in the Motherland. At one, plots have .been neatly made and six thousand bulbs and a number of roses planted. The hospital and even the camp grounds ■will be beautiful in the coming spring. The Hornchurch Convalescent Camp and one of the hospitals will be the last of the New Zealand institutions in England after the war is finished. They will probably be still in working order a year or eighteen monthes after tlie fighting is ended. Demobilisation is not going to be an easy matter. It is realised by those who have given it thought that it will take a long time.

OTHER ACTIVITIES. ' The health of the men in England was good. The one question that was impairing efficiency, and! was giving the authorities somo concern, was that of venereal disease. The problem is a difficult one at 1 any time. It becomes (accentuated in war-time, especially in English cities, where the methods of [control are lax as compared with what [ prevails in France. At present London streets are infested with undesirables who prey upon the unsuspecting soldier. Lately there has been a public outcry 'for remedial measures, and it is sincerely to be hoped that something will be soon done to miifiasise the evil.