THE LONELY SOLDIER

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 218, 9 June 1921, Page 6

THE LONELY SOLDIER

FRIENDLESS MEN IN HOSPITALS WHAT IS TO BE DONE FOR THEM "Lonely soldier" is a person no less real to-day than he was in the war time; bdt now the thrills and excitement that used to crowd* his days are vanished, and it is just a question whether he would not willingly forsake for the hardships and horrors of buttle the monotony of his changeless days in hospital. Nearly J 104) soldiers are in-pati-ents of the hospitals of New Zealand al the present time, and the loneliness ot some of them it requires little imagination to picture, for many —not merely a few —have scarcely a visitor to see them, because of the distance flint separates them from their relatives and 'friends.

"Please do not tell my wife in England. She is in a very bad state of health, ufld it would worry her if she knew I was in Iho hospital,” wrote one soldier-patient in a letter to the Defence Department recently. He added that he had no friends at all in New Zealand.

At the Base Records Office, Wellington, is n growing pile of correspondence which tells a very sad story in the plainest of terms. The Defence Department recently found that there were cases in which soldiers were receiving treatment in hospital while their relatives and friends knew nothing of the fact. Now a letter has been sent to each soldier’s next-of-kiu. to ensure that the latter shall be aware of the soldier’s condition. When the next-of-kin cannot be traced—and many are overseas —the soldier has been asked to furnish the name and address of any person, in New Zealand to whom he would like reports upon his condition to be dispatched. He has also been .asked to state whether he has any friends oi' relatives residing near the hospital ; and this is how the fact has been revealed that so many of the sufferers see weeks or months go by without receiving a call from anyone personally interested in them. The letters referred to were sent out some ten days ago, and how grateful the soldiers or those nearest to them have been for the spirit that prompted the writers is sufficiently indicated by tho number of expressions of thanks already received.

‘ "It is nothing material that the soldier ia hospital wants, just evidence that somebody feels a personal interest in him,” said an officer of the Department yesterday, as he explained to a reporter what the Department proposed io do. Now that it was known, he said, how many men were friendless, the Department was going to try to interest someone personally in each case. It would give the names of individual patients to persons who wished to befriend them. "Here is a letter I sent to a man in Wellington to-day,” the officer slated. "I know him, and I know quite well that he’ll think it no trouble to run his car out to Trentham twice a week to pay n visit that will break the monotony for some poor chap. Everyone must feel that the visit of a mere casual caller who doesn’t know one patient from another is not going to mean so much as a call from someone who will get to know the individual sufferer and care for him.”

So (.here is the idea, in broad outline; and the Defence Department hopes it will be understood and supported by those who feel that "the lonely soldier" deserves the same kindness and sympathy to-day as he got when letters from his unknown friends used to reach him far overseas.