TRENTHAM'S NEW USE

Evening Star, Issue 16994, 17 March 1919, Page 2

TRENTHAM'S NEW USE

A GREAT ORTHOPEDIC HOSPITAL.

OLD HUTMENTS UTILISED.

WELLINGTON, March 17. Grass is crowing on the big drill ground at Trentham training camp to-day, but the big place is no “ white elephant,” even thou r li its original purpose has ceased. Every part of the camp is xeuuired for military uses of the future, and a prompt start has been made in adopting it for new requirements. Workmen are busy converting many of the old hutments into hospital wards. Those large, healthy hutments, with a little adaptation, make flue wards, and by an ingenious system of connecting them up with a corridor, and providing the usual hospital conveniences, they will provide hospital accommodation for about 700 soldiers who will return to New Zeal ml needing orthopedic treatment before they are discharged. Trentham had its well-equipped hospital in the training days, and this now makes the centre of the great institution at present coming into being. Many of our soldiers will remember Krithia road, a camp street close to the hospital compound. It was lined with hutments, most of them 140 ft long, with a width of 25f1. Div'dod into halves, they housed 60 men. The old central partition has been taken out of 10 hutments on one side of the street, the walls have been lined with matoh-boarding, the ventilation brought up to hospital standard, and the lighting improved. Each hutment is partitioned off at one end to provide a nurses’ sitting room, a ward kitchen with range, and amp’e oudboard accommoclH : on. The online w buildings to be provided are lavatories with concrete floors, where the patients will have hot and cold baths and showers But for the lavatory blocks, the whole scheme involves no extra building, fox the hutments lend themselves well to the new purpose, and the block of 10 makes a hos pital for 300 patients, with communication from end to end. It is a good example of economical planning. On the opposite side of the street hutments have been converted into quarters for the nurses and the women helpers who will be required. A hutment is partitioned into 30 roomy, well-lighted cubicles, each nurse or helper having a separate room. At one end is placed the lavatory and bathroom. One hutment is being turned into a matron’s quarters, and there is ample room left for a nurses' parlor. The dining ball is another hutment, and an old dxy-ng shed now becomes a cooking department for the staff. Vocational and occupational training will bo an important feature of the hospital, and this involves the utilisation of more hutments. They are being subdivided into shops fox boot repairing, surgical bootmaking, a library for technical works, a blacksmith’s shop, and a workshop for the acetone welding plant, a hairdresser’s shop, ironworking shop, leather working shop, plaster splint shop, upholstering shop, and other occupational work rooms. One hutment, with the partition remaining, but liner! with matchboarding. enters on a new lease of useful occupation as two lecture rooms for instruction in farming and commercial subjects. Store rooms are also required, and thus the hospital spreads over more hutments. The. Y.M.C.A., always on the spot ■where soldiers are quartered, has been given the use of a hutment, which is rapidly being transformed into a welldecorated paid of halls. One is for billiards and the other for wntinx, reading, and quiet games. There is a large gymnasium in camp, built by the Y.M.C.A. with the aid of a Government subsidy. When it is complete it will come into use in this comprehensive scheme, for gymnastics are part of the orthopedic treatment. The old medical, hutment, with its large examination room will retain its fo; mm- - trnoaphero to some extent, because the Army planners have made it- into a massage establishment The massage tables are made by the Army O.dnancc Department, which is carrying out all the work on this hospital scheme, the workmen being soldiers under military discipline, their foreman a non-commissioned officer, and the general director a commissioned officer who in civil life would be clerk of works. They* could all “ hold down ” their jobs effectively in civilian industry. The very complete drainage system, for instance, is carried out under the direction of an officer who has had experience of this work in large institutions m England. READY FOR A RUSH. The evacuation of our hospitals in England may result in a heavy demand for hospital accommodation for soldiers in New Zealand. The Defence Department is ready for the pressure if it comes, the handy hutments being again a factor in the arrangements. A number of the hutments have been converted into temporary wards for “walking cases.’’ The patients will have roomy, comfortable quarters, and some of the old buildings formerly used as stores have been fitted with lavatory and bath accommodation. 'They' are close to the hutments. Accommodation has been similarly provided for the nursing staff and helpers, and two hutments have been partitioned off into cubicles for cot cases requiring special attention. In this way, if 800 cases arrived immediately, the Direc-tor-general of Me'dicai Services will not be placed in any dilemma. ORTHOPEDIC TREATMENT. The word “orthopedy” has come into more general use since the war created a fresh set of problems for the surgeop, It can best be defined as meaning the restoration of function. Wounds heal, but they leave behind a disability due to injury to the bone, muscle, or nerve. Unless this disability is carefully treated, it may be permanent, but under orthopedic treatment lost or impaired functions are marvellously restored, and this development of medical science is so extensive that it is anticipated that Britain will require hospital beds for 120,000 orthopedic cases as a result of the great war. New Zealand, in lesser proportion, has the same problem, and we are meeting it by transplanting to the Dominion well-trained or-

tbopediats, and the equipment which has been found necessary, for the treatment. Military surgeons are now arriving in New Zealand Who have been thoroughly trained under Major-general Sir Robert Jones, the originator of military orthopedica, and one of the greatest world authorities on the subject. These surgeons are now being posted to the various orthopedic centres in New Zealand—i.e., Dunedin, Christchurch, Auckland, Trentham, etc. Colonel T. Mill, the principal medical officer at Trentham, who was in charge of the New Zealand hospital at Walton-oft-Thames for a considerable period, baa had good opportunities of studying this branch of medical science. He will have with him experienced officers who have had English training in electro-therapy and massage, X-ray work, orthopedic gymnastics, and curative training. Orthopedic treatment is threefold. There is the operative, the sugeon’s work; the curative treatment in the workshops; and electro-therapy, baths, and gymnasia. The workshop instructors —preferably returned soldiers—will be carefully chosen, for important results are to be obtained from this sphere. A soldier who has been used to desk work as a civilian may be found in the shops working a treadle machine, either making boots or cutting fretwork. He will be kept busy, not to fit himself for a new occupation upon discharge, but to restore the full function of his legs. And there are occupational opportunities for the patients purely as a means of overcoming the dullness of a long course of rest in hospital. Still another aspect which has to be studied in the interests of the soldiers is their education for . a trade or occupation more suited for them than their old one, owing to changed physical condition. It is all covered in this comprehensive scheme. Everything will be really for 700 patient,? about the middle of next month, as the work of transforming hutments into wards is being very expeditiously done by the ordanco branch. Smaller _ institutions of the kind may then be relieved of soldier patients requiring orthopedic treatment. Those men will be carrying their war sacrifice in peace time, and one need hardly fear that the generous activities of civilians during the war will cease with the armistice. Trentham Hospital lost its library, which had to be burned after the influenza epidemic, so good books are wanted from the public. Local generosity provides motor ontiners for the men, but there is another field for sympathisers with the disabled soldier over a wider area in the provision of fresh fruit and vegetables.