The Rhodes Convalescent Home.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6482, 27 February 1889, Page 4

The Rhodes Convalescent Home.

I » RECOVERY MADE EAST* It; is a curious thing, but one* which might perhaps have been anticipated, that the 'Rhodes Convalescent Home is apparently more appreciated outside the Province of Canterbury than in and around Christchurch. Under the heading given above, the Wellington Evening Press devotes a full column to the subject. The notice is apropos of a proposal by the Wellington Hospital Trustees to found a similar institution in Wellington. The writer of the article says :— "The carrying of a resolution at the meeting of the Wellington Hospital Trustees in favour of the establishment o£ a convalescent home, and the appointment of a Committee to collect information on the subject, offer an occasion for bringing to notice an institution which is not nearly as well known as it deserves to be. This is the Rhodes Convalescent Home at Cashmere, near. Christchurch, a kind of private hospital, built, furnished, and to some extent, we believe, endowed by the munificence of the Rhodes family." After giving a detailed description of site, building, and general arrangements as a sanatorium, couched in the most laudatory terms, it goes on to say, "The difficulty is to get poor people or working people to go there, partly owing to a mistaken notion that it is too fine for them, and likely to be too costly, and partly from the equally mistaken notion that time spent in recovering from an illness is time wasted. Many ahard working, industrious man or woman loses twice as much time by returning to work too soon after an illness as would be needed for a complete recovery at the Home, besides perhaps incurring a life long injury. It simply means going back again to the sick-room or the Hospital, and having to undergo two sicknesses instead of one. Few forms of human misery, are more pitiable, we think, than that of having to grind through the daily round of toil in broken health, failing strength, or dull, wearing pain. It was { for the relief of that that the Convalescent 1 Home was established, and great will be 1 its usefulness when suffering people or ! benevolent people come to realise fully the i advantages it offers. We do not know \ whether the Trustees. of the Wellington j Hospital are so far imbued with localism ; as to think that Canterbury air would disagree with Wellington convalescents. We feel we are treading on dangerous ground. But it certamly seems to us that ■ the Committee who have been appointed I to make enquiries on the subject of provision for convalescent patients would 36 i well to write to the Honorary Secretary of the Rhodes Convalescent Home at Christchurch, and ascertain the terms upon which patients are received there. We learn that there are funds for such a purpose, and doubtless more will be forthcoming, and, looking both to the welfare of the patients and the finances of the Trustees, it is surely worth while to consider whether, for the present at all events; a trip to the Fort Hills; where there is a magnificent Convalescent Home in full working order, would not be better than a sojourn atPaikakariki,whereeverything has to be done. The suggestion is a practical one, but we- are quite preparedtO" find the stones of Wellington rise up against us for making it."