Taranaki Parcels Help the Recovery Of N.Z. Soldiers

Taranaki Daily News, 28 August 1942, Page 2

Taranaki Parcels Help the Recovery Of N.Z. Soldiers

Occupational therapy in | Middle East hospital. An appeal for buckles from old wrislet watch straps is made by Private Frank Haggett, who is in charge of the occupational therapy treatment at the No. 3 New Zealand General Hospital, Middle East Forces, in a letter to Mrs. H. J. Frank, president of the Inglewood Red Cross Society, expressing thanks for parcels forwarded by the branch and the Lady Galway Guild. The parcels contained scraps of wool, tapestry, paua shells, kauri, passe partout, old felt bats, etc., all of which, the Writer, his two W.W.S.A. helpers and the patients found very helpful. Private Haggett writes that until the hats arrived they had been unable to interest one patient whose trade had been hat re-blocking. He became enthusiastic at once and showed the others how the hats could be steamed and drawn out into flat discs and long strips for the making of attractive belts with applique designs. Inlaid work in shell was one of the traditional crafts of Egypt, the letter stated, but the New Zealanders copsidered that the paua shells with their lustrous colours looked much better.

Want to Carve Tikis. Many of the patients wanted to carve tikis but the only word they could get was box wood and oregon pine, very rough and full of knots, so they were very glad of the kauri and the shell for the eyes. The passe partout paper was very welcome. Private Haggett explained, because they had been using strips of brown paper. They used X-ray films instead of glass. It was very difficult to get buckles for the leather objects the patients made, he said, and when he thought of the old watch straps with good buckles he had thrown away, he wondered if people were still doing the same and if 'i would be possible to salvage some. The straps bought in the Middle East had aluminium buckles thal corroded before the straps gave ov.t. The men who were working in the room mentioned by Private Haggett were mostly concussion cases, who usually suffered from severe mental depression. It was almest impossible for them to pull themselves together, for they had for the most part lost interest in everything. Occupational work therefore had to be made attractive, so that they would take an interest in something, and there had to be a variety of occupations to suit all tastes and for varying degrees of expertness. It was not the finished product that was of importance, Private Haggett explained, but the measure of absorption ir the task. Some patients had pecnliar fixed ideas or "complexes that hindered their recoverv. A common one was that the doctors did not understand the case and could do nothing for the patient. and that the patient would never be any better. It was found that where a patients attention was absorbed in some occupation, he was receptive to counter-suggestion and so, with the co-operation of the medical officer, Private Haggett practised psycho-theranv together w'th occupational therapy. From the free conversation of the patients among themselves, he was able to analyse their states of mind fairly well and so work eut what ideas "to sell" them. "It is gratifying to see how thev pick up," Private Haggett writes. "It makes one feel well repaid for all the trouble."