MILITARY HOSPITALS.

Taranaki Daily News, 17 July 1919, Page 5

MILITARY HOSPITALS.

PROVISION FOR CONSUMPTIVE MEN. CASES TO LEAVE FEATHERSTON. The new sanatorium for soldiers at Waipukurau, Hawke's Bay, will be ready for occupation at the end of nex,t month. The completion of this institution, which will provide accommodation foi about 150 returned soldiers who are suffering from tubercular trouble, has been delayed by shortage of labor. The military sanatorium oa Cashmere Hills, Christchurch, will be ready to receive patients next week. It will have accommodation for fifty men at once, and for an additional fifty men later. The Director-General of Medical Services stated some days ago that the hospital ship Marama, which will bo coming south from Auckland this week, would take some tubercular eases from Cambridge Sanatorium and Featherston Military Hospital to the Cashmere Hills Sanatorium. All the tubercular cases would be evacuated from Featherston. When the military sanatoria at Waipukurau and Cashmere Hills were completed there would be sufficient accommodation for all the returned soldiers requiring treatment of the kind provided at these institutions. Some advanced cases were not suitable for sanatorium treatment, and would be re.tained in other hospitals. Some returned men suffering from tubercular trouble, added General McGavin, would go to their own homes after the medical authorities were assured that the conditions were suitableThese men would first cuter a sanatorium and receive a course of education treatment, in order that they might understand how to promote .their own recovery and protect other people from danger of infection. The Department was prepared to supply open-air shelters for the use of such men at their own homes.

The Director-Genoral of Medical _ Services mentioned that each of the military sanatoria would be under the control of a medical officer who had received special training for the work in the United Kingdom. Difficulty was being experienced at the present time in securing efficient orderlies for the military hospitals and sanatoria. . Preference was given to returned soldiers in employment of this kind, but be realised that the service had not always been entirely satisfactory. He hoped soon to be able to replace the orderlies to a large extent with returned nurses and V.A.D:s. This arrangement would relievo the Mpdical Department of one of the disabilities under which it hadrbeen working.