Tekapo Health Camps

Timaru Herald, Volume CL, Issue 22133, 29 November 1941, Page 4

Tekapo Health Camps

THE deputation which waited upon the Minister of Internal Affairs on Thursday urging the establishment of a permanent children’s health camp, a holiday hostel for mothers and a recuperative hostel for returned soldiers at Lake Tekapo received some advice from the Minister. Mr Parry apparently does not approve of all these projects being given a single location. There may be something in his objection to the generalised proposals, but the deputation was rewarded moderately by learning that Mr Parry looked with some favour at least on the suggested health camp for children and the holiday hostel for mothers. It is more than probable that the Government is working out its own scheme for the establishment of recuperative centres for returned soldiers and to this extent Mr Parry would have been justified in opposing wellintentioned diffusion of effort.

However, the broad question of making use of the Lake Tekapo region for health purposes should be forced continuously upon the attention of the Government by those organisations which have already had the vision to understand the good that would come from the establishment of health centres there. Lake Tekapo is an unrivalled location for health centres, and a Government which has now undertaken the responsibility of caring directly for the health of the people should be the first to admit that the prevention of disease is more economic than later cures. The proper use of the health-giving endowments of Lake Tekapo would be a rich investment for the Government and the people.

Philosophy triumphs easily over past, and over future evils, but present evils triumph over philosophy. — Francois Rochefoucauld.