FIFTY YEARS AGO

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21893, 31 August 1934, Page 8

FIFTY YEARS AGO

TRANSPORT OF PATIENTS SLOW TRIPS TO HOSPITAL The excellence of the service provided ifc Auckland by the St. John Ambulance for the rapid and comfortable transport of hospital patients is in sharp contrast to the methods available in Auckland half a century ago. With the motor vehicle little more than an inventor's dream, and horse-drawn vehicles the only means of transport otFering, accident victims had long and painful journeys to hospital. That the need for better conditions •was realised at the time is indicated in the following extract from the Herald of September 1. 1884:—"It would, perhaps, be advisable, looking io the frequency of accidents in Auckland, to take under serious consideration the advisability of establishing in some central portion of the city a casual ward to which injured persons might, in the first instance, be removed. The long jaunt in an express-waggon or a cab to the hospital is often harrowing in the extreme to an unfortunate suffering from a fractured limb or other distressing injury. Many patients who have been treated in the hospital have declared that this journey "was the worst part of the programme, and the paia they are unintentionally made to bear ii: often of an excruciating nature. "To remedy this, all that is necessary would be the fitting-up of a couple-of rooms, say, in High Street, within reasonable reach of the police station, with a couple or so of beds, and the necessary surgical appliances at hand.