WAR MEDALS.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 April 1922, Page 4

WAR MEDALS.

STATEMENT AS TO DISTRIBUTION. OUT-PATIENTS DEPARTMENT CLOSED. By Telegraph.—-Press Association. ■Christchurch, Last Night. Sir R. Heaton Rhodes, Minister of Defence, remarked to-night that the number of war medals issued up to March 31 last was 140,136, made up as follows :—1914-15 Star 25,985, War Medal 85,096, Victory Medal 2905. Of the number, 293 Stars and 2452 War and Victory Medals had been returned unclaimed, in addition to about 200 medals that cannot be dispatched until an address for each is available. The number of plaquets dispatched ap to March 31 was 15,200, and 1200 are being dispatched this month to the High Commissioner for distribution to the next of kin in the United Kingdom. There are approximately 2200 plaqpiets yet to be distributed.

The issue of illuminated certificates has, up to the present, been confined to men who served honorably with the expeditionary force, and were intended originally as discharge certificates. They were, therefore, not issued to the next of kin of those who died on service. It has now been approved that thi« certificate, with certain necessary alterations, shall be issued to the next of kin who died while on service, or in the Dominion, as the result of war service prior to receiving such certificate. The out-patients department of the medical branch of the defence Department, which has been administered by assistant directors of medical services in the various commands, has been closed as from March 31. It will affeet, approximately, 1200 men, and these will in future be given treatment by the Health Department at the out-patients departments of civil hospitals. The only medical institution now being administered by the Defence Department is the Cashmere Sanatorium, and thia is to be taken over at an early date.