Amputees Training Centre At Mt. Eden

Northern Advocate, 9 April 1943, Page 4

Amputees Training Centre At Mt. Eden

(Special)

AUCKLAND, Thursday

After long consideration, a site in Mount Eden has been approved for the erection of an Auckland vocational training centre for disabled soldiers of the present war. An announcement to this effect was made last” night at the annual meeting of the Auckland War Amputees’ Association by the chairman (Mr T. C. Browne). The chairman said that old hands were determined to do all they could to help the Diggers in the present war in the trying problems they will have to face through loss of limbs. Pie deplored the lack of preparedness to give amputees a chance of full rehabilitation. Men of the last war were determined to do their utmost to see that amputees were not placed in dead-end and nerve-trying jobs such as liftmen and the like.

The amputee was still an economic asset to the community and it was the duty of the country to see that nothing was left undone to develop his powers. One Cabinet member had argued that it would be foolish to embark on vocational schemes until full needs were known. That, Mr Browne declared, would be fatal. Mr A. R. Hislop (Wellington), a member of the New-Zealand Council of Disabled Servicemen’s Re-estab-lishment League, said that it had been proposed to have in Wellington and Auckland limb manufacturing establishments. A vocational training centre in Auckland would be proceeded with at the earliest opportunity, he Ihought, but there were many matters to be ironed out first at the Wellinglon centre, which was well under way now, and from which the Auckland project might ultimately benefit. Amputees could rest assured that their needs would receive the most sympathetic consideration and that those entrusted with their interests and welfare were determined to do the best (hey could to compensate them for their great sacrifices.