FOR CHILDREN

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 294, 12 December 1942, Page 6

FOR CHILDREN

HEALTH CAMPS

SUMMER ARRANGEMENT

Some 110 children from the Auckland district will be able to spend a recuperative holiday at local health camps this year. Many obstacles have had to be overcome by the Auckland Central Council cf the NewZealand Federation of Health Camps to achieve this end. The first camp will open at Campbell's Bay on January 6, and in the following four weeks 100 children will be given a fortnight's holidav there. wh ; ie n private camp at Taupo has been placed at the disposal of the federation in which two batches of 20 children will be accommodated for a fortnight each from early in .lanuarv.

Selection of Children

rhc selection of the children considered most in need of a health holiday at the federation camp has been made hy the school nurses working through the Health Department, while the donor of the Taupo camp has added a proviso that the children sent there should be those of servicemen.

Several of the sites which have formerly been used for this excellent social service have for some time been "out of bounds" and the requirements of defence have made their use impossible, hut the Auckland Centre has been unremitting in its efforts to find sites and make the necessary arrangements for the accommodation and victualling of the children. An ambitious scheme for a pei mancnt health camp has been planned for some time under the King George V. Memorial Fund, but has neon retarded owing to building restrictions. It has now been intimated. however, that the matter will be reviewed in three months' time with a view to granting permission to proceed. The site chosen is at Fidgeon Mountain, on the Bucklands Beach Road, and should the building s erection be permited it will provide an institution that will render splendid service to needy children.

Increase in Work

The officials of the Auckland Central Council have found that the work of the health camps has largely increased during the war period while the facilities for catering for all the necessitious cases have been seriously depleted. The absence of so many fathers with the forces at defence installations and overseas has made it desirable to give an even greater number of youngsters the benefits of a health holiday, and it is hoped that with the indications of changed circumstances the rigid measures that have prevented the use of the former camps may in time be eased sufficiently to allow the work of the authorities to be resumed.