CONVALESCENT CONSUMPTIVES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2823, 22 April 1908, Page 70

CONVALESCENT CONSUMPTIVES.

A HUMANE SCHEME. , AUCKLAND, April 15. The Health Department is about to inaugurate a scheme that has been m contemplation for some years. The proposal ! is m the direction of providing suitable employment for people who have been at I the various State sanatoria and haye recovered from consumption. The details of the scheme are withheld for the present, but it will be on the lines of enab- , ling the people referred to to earn their I living m a manner that shall be of benefit ! not only to themselves but to the State. | CHRISTCHURCH, April 15. j In reference to the telegram from Auckland relative to the employment bf consumptives, the Hon. Mr Fowlds, Minister of Public Health, informed a Press re- , porter to-night that the employment would I be m connection with' the tree-planting operations of the Lands Department. Expatients would be provided with a separate camp, and be paid the ordinary rate' of wages by the department for labour at tree-planting. They would thus have tho benefit of an open-air life until they got ! hardened up aud able to go to other employment. The great drawback m connecI tion with patients coming from the Cambridge Sanatorium was that they oould not go back to ordinary offioe occupations, and if they did they probably lost before long the benefits they had derived from the Fanatorium treatment. The experiment would be tried first m the neighbourhood of Whakarewarewa, where treeplanting operations were now being carried on. "When the South Island sanatoria were m operation the same facilities for employment at tree-planting would 'io doubt be made available.