TRAINING DEPOT

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 20, 18 October 1941, Page 8

TRAINING DEPOT

Building Begun At Silverstream

CONVALESCENT SOLDIERS Work has started on the erection at Silverstream of a convalescent training depot for soldiers. It will be under the control of the Army and not the hospital board, as is the case with ordinary convalescent hospitals. Similar depots for short term convalescent soldier patients are to be erected near the Papakura and Burnham Military camps. The depots were for hardening those who had been in hospital before they returned to the training camps, said the Director-General of Medical Services, Brigadier F. T. Bowerbank, in an interview yesterday. They would be a stepping-stone between the extreme comfort of the hospital and the more rigorous conditions of camp life. It was not intended to treat in the depots long-term convalescent soldiers, who would be sent to Hamner and Rotorua. At the depots, such conditions as flat feet and poor development would be treated and the buildings would also be used for war-weary men from overseas and those sent back for a change or debilitated men who would be given a period of training.

Spacious Grounds. The depot at Silvprstream was being built on the plateau at the northern end of the Taita Gorge, between 100 and 200 feet above road-level. It would consist of a series of ’buildings similar to the wooden huts used in Air Force camps. There would be nine or 10 buildings, the men sleeping in three huts. Provision was being made for an administration block, physio-ther-apy and massage departments, a gjmnasium, a lecture hall and a recreation theatre. Lectures would be a regular feature, the idea being to effect mental as well as physical improvement among the men. Grounds for tennis and other open-air sports were being laid out, and the building and grounds would cover some 10 or 12 acres. The depot would have a capacity of 300, continued Brigadier Bowerbank. The staff would consist of medical officers and special army instructors chosen where possible from the physical welfare branch of the Education Department. The Public Works Department hoped to have the Silverstream depot ready for occupation in three or four months.