A NEW ZEALANDER AND THE HOSPITAL CHARGES.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXI, Issue 198, 21 August 1900, Page 2

A NEW ZEALANDER AND THE HOSPITAL CHARGES.

Lieutenant D'Arcy Chnytor, of the X.Z.M.K., who is now recuperating at Home, attempts a refutation of Mr W. Burdett-Coutts' charges against the Medical Department in respect to their care of sick and wounded soldiers generally, and enteric patients in particular. The lieutenant says: "As a member of a colonial contingent present at Bloemfontein from March 12 to May 10, and one who was nursed through enteric in hospital there, 1 should like to express 'my own experience of the hospitals, as against the alarming view taken by Mr BurdettCoutts. I saw 21 of my own men sent back from Paardeberg and cured. There was not a grumble of any kind. For myself, nothing could exceed the carefui attention that was shown to me and to all near me from April 16 to May 10 in hospital at Bloemfontein, and 1* heard the same story from all those that. I saw. For the first fortnight at Bloemfontein the soldiers were in rags, their boots withoiit soles, most sleeping without covering in much rain, and both horses and men only half-fed. Those in hospital were far better off, and they knew that everything humanly possible was being done for them, and there -was no grumbling whatever. Ample food and stores had been provided, but it was impossible to bring them up, and all knew that. How could the hospitals and medical stores be otherwise? There was great pressure, and Mr Burdett-Coutts may have seen instances where the work overwhelmed the workers; but his account becomes misleading and cruel if we apply it to the general hospitals with Lord Roberts' army." Mr Coutts' charges are too specific for them to be quashed by even such testimony as this, and some of them have received confirmation at the lips and pens of men who were in the thick of the enteric outbreak at Bloemfontein. What people saw before or alter Mr Coutts was at Bloemfontein is nothing to the point, any more than the angry contradictions of gentlemen who happened to see a little of Tommy Atkins in hospital in Natal, or in Cape Colony.