HOSPITAL IN 1865

Southland Times, Issue 23152, 19 March 1937, Page 9

HOSPITAL IN 1865

APPROACHES KNEE DEEP IN MUD Few people wish to go to hospital even when they can be carried swiftly and easily to the hospital doors in an ambulance. But in 1865 it must have been something of a hazardous enterprise to gain admission to the Southland public hospital. A plea that the approaches to the hospital be made “safe and comfortable'’ was contained in a letter published in Robert Fulton’s “Medical Practice in Otago and Southland in the early days.” The letter, taken from the correspondence columns of a

newspaper on May 27, 1865, stated:— “We beg to call attention to the bad state of the approaches to the hospital. The road leading from the gratings in Dee street to the entrance gates is knee deep in mud and of a night must be most uncomfortable, if not dangerous, to cross. In the case of a person with a fractured leg being taken into the hospital on a dark night, we believe the chances are ten to one that he would be further injured by his attendants slipping with him on the road we have alluded to. Surely the authorities could find«a few loads of gravel and spare the labour of three or four prisoners for a couple of days in order to make the approaches to the hospital safe and comfortable.”