TRENTHAM'S NEW USE.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 March 1919, Page 6

TRENTHAM'S NEW USE.

A-GREAT ORTHOPAEDIC HOSPITAL. OLD HUTMENTS UTILISED, i Wellington, March 17. Grass is growing on the big drillground at Trentham training camp today, but the big place is no "white elephant" even though iti original purpose has ceased. Every part of the camp is required for military uses of the future, and a prompt start has been made in adapting it. for new requirements. Workmen* are busy converting many of the old hutments into hospital wards. These large, healthy hutments, with a little adaptation, make fine wards, and bv an ingenious system of connecting them up with a corridor, and providing the usual hospital conveniences, they will provide hospital accommodation for about 700 soldiers who will return to New Zealand needing orthopaedic treatment before theey are discharged. Trentham had its well equipped hospital in the training days, and this now makes the centre of the great institution a.t present coming into being. Many of our soldiers will remember Krithm road, a camp street close to the hospital compound. It was lined with hutments, most of thorn 140 feet long, with a width of 25 feet. Divided into halves, they housed sixty men. The old central partition has been taken out of ten" hutments on one side of the street, the walls have been lined with match-board-ing, the ventilation brought up to hospital standard, and the lighting improved. Each hutment is partitioned off it one end, to provide a nurses' sit-ting-room, a ward kitchen with range, and ample cupboard accommodation The only new buildings to he provided are lavatories wilh concrete floors, where the patients will have hot and cold baths and showers. But for the lavatory blocks, the whole scheme involves no extra building, Jot the hutments lend thenis»lv4» well to the new purpose, and the block of ten makes a hospital for 300 patients, with communication from end to end. It is a good example of economical planning. On the opposite side of the street, hutments have been converted into quarters for the nurses and the women helpers who will be required. A hutment is partitioned into 30 roomy, we'lllighted cubicles, each nurse or helper having a separate room. At one is placed the lavatory and bathroom.. One hutment is being turned into a matron's quarters, and there is ample room left for a nurses' parlour. The dining/hall is another hutment, and an old dryingshed now becomes a cooking department for the staff.

Vocational and occupational training will be an important feature of the hospital, and this involves the utilisation of mora hutments. They are being subdivided into shops for boot-repairing, surgical boot-making, a library for technical works, a blacksmith's shop and a workshop for the acetone welding plant, a hairdresser's shop ; iron-working sho\), and leather working shop, plaster splint shop upholstering shop, and other occupational work-rooms. One hutment, with the partition remaining but lined with match-boarding, enters on a new lease of useful occupation as two lecture rooms for instruction in farming and commercial subjects. S1 ore-rooms are also required, and thus the hospital spreads over more hutments- The Y.M.CA always on the spot where soldiers are quartered, has been the use of a hutment, which, is rapidly being transformed into a well decorated pair of halls. One is for billiards, and the other for wilting, reading, and quiet games. There is a' large gymnasium in eamip, built by the Y.M.C A with the aid of a Government subsidy. When it is complete, it will come into use in this comprehensive scheme, for gymnastics are part of the orthopaedic treatment. The old medical hutment, with its ia'rge examination room, will retain its former atmosphere to some extent, because the army planners have made it into a massage establishment. The massage tables are made by the Army Ordnance Department, which is carrying out all the work on this hospital scheme, the workmen wing soldiers under military discipline, their foreman a non-commissioned officer, and the general director a commissioned officer, who, in civil life would be clerk of works. They could all "hold down" their jobs effectively in civilian industry. The very complete drainage system, for instance, is carried out under the direction of an officer who has had exiperience of this work in large institutions in England

READY FOR A RUSH. The evacuation of our hospitals in England may result in a heavy demand for hospital accommodation for soldiers in New Zealand. The Defence Department is ready for the pressure if it comes, the handy hutments being again a factor in the arrangements. A number of the hutments have been converted into temporary wards for "walking cases." The patients will have roomy comfortable quarters, and some of the old buildings formerly used as stores have been fitted with lavatory and bath accommodation. They are close to the hutments. Accommodation has been similarly provided for the nursing staff and helpers, and two hutments have been partitioned off into cubicles for cot cases requiring special attention. In this way, if eight hundred cases arrived immediately the Director General of Medical Service will not be placed in any dilemma.

ORTHOPAEDIC TREATMENT. The word "orthopaedy" has come into more general use since the war created a fresh set of problems for the surgeon. It' can best be defined as meaning the restoration of function. Wounds heal, but thqy leave behind a disability due to injury to the bone, muscle or nerve. Unless this disability is carefully treated it may be permanent, but under orthopaedic treatment lost or impaired functions are marvellously restored, and this development of medical science is so extensive that it- is anticipated that Britain will require hospital beds for 120,000 orthopaedic cases as a result of the great war. New Zealand, in lesser proportion, has the same problem, and we are meeting it by transplanting to the Dominion well trained orthopaedists, and the equipment which has been found necessary for the treatment. Military surgeons are now arriving in New Zealand who have been thoroughly trained under Major-General Sir Robert Jones, the originator of military orthopaedics, and one 6f tJie greatest world authorities on the subject. These surgeons are now being posted to the various orthopaedic centres in New Zealand, i.e., Dunedin, Christchurch, Auckland, Trentham, etc. C*loa*l I, &IU, tfct principal atdiwri

officer at Trentham, who was in charge of the New Zealand hospital at Walton-lon-Thames for a considerable period, has had good opportunities of studying this branch of medical science. He will have with him experienced officers who. have had English training in electro-theraphy and massage, X-ray work, orthopoodic gymnasties and curative training, urthopoedic treatment is three-fold- Tho.c is the operative, the surgeons' work; the curative treatment in the workshops; and electro-theraphy, baths and gymnastics. The workshop instructors, preferably returned soldiers, will be carefully phosen, for important results are to be obtained from this sphere. A soldier who has been used to desk work as a civilian may be found in the shops working a treadle machine, either making boots or sutting fret-work. He will be kept busy, not to fit himself for a new occupation upon discharge, but to restore the full function of his legs. And there are occupational opportunities for the patients purely as a means of overcoming the dullness of a long course of rest in hospital. Still another aspect which has to be studied in the interests of the soldier is their education for a trade or occupation more suited for them than their old one, owing to changed physical conditions. It is all covered in this comprehensive scheme. « Everything will be ready for 700 patients about the middle of next month, as the work of transforming hutments into wards is being very expeditiously done by the Ordnance Branch. Smaller institutions of the kind may then be relieved of soldier patients requiring orthopoedic treatment. These men will be carrying their war sacrifice in peacetime, and one need hardly fear that the generous activities of civilians during the war will cease with the armistice. Trentham hospital lost its library, which had to be burned after the influenza epidemic, so good books are wanted from the public. Local generosity provides motor outings for the men, but there js another field for sympathisers with the disabled soldier over a wider area, in the provision of fresh fruit and vegetables.