MILITARY SANATORIUM

Marlborough Express, Volume LIII, Issue 276, 24 November 1919, Page 6

MILITARY SANATORIUM

OFFICIAL REPORT

THE PATIENTS CONTENTED.

WELLINGTON, Nov7 21. A report has been received by the Defence Minister from BrigadierGeneral Me Gavin on complaints made by the Returned Soldiers' Association regarding the military sanatorium at Pukeroa,, near Waipukurau. Tlie statement that the sanatorium cost £00,000 is, saiys General McGavin, a grcss exaggeration. The total cost, including shelters, land, machinery, electric lighting, andl laundry, will be £33,867. The personnel vi at-tiandiants is composed chiefly of returned soldiers. Many of these have proved unsatisfactory,, andi have been discharged. More suitable men ara enlisted as they become available. The female staff will be increased. The institution was quite ready* in all essentials before patients 'vere placed' in it. The patients, with only two exceptions, are happy and contented. All except one stated that they had no complaint to make. The one excepted stated than he disliked boiled mutton, but admitted that alternative dishes were provided1. A still wicter field of selection has been arranged for. Notices are posted in the sanatorium that any patient having a complaint to make will dio so to the officer in charge, who assorts that he had not heard of many of tihe complaints before reading the reports in the newspapers. The method adopted by patients of reporting through a complaints committee to tihe R.S.A. is not only devious, cumbrous, and1 wasteful of time, but causes quite, unnecessary annoyance to and. discontent in the staff, rendering the smoojfch working of the institution difficult.