FAMOUS WAR HOSPITAL WILL BE CLOSED SOON.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18889, 12 October 1929, Page 11

FAMOUS WAR HOSPITAL WILL BE CLOSED SOON.

The London “Daily Mail” of August 27 contains nows concerning a famous war hospital that will be read with interest by many New Zealanders. One of the most finely equipped hospitals in the cquntry is to be closed down in October (says the paper). It is the Queen’s Hospital at Sidcup, Kent, which at present accommodates eighty patients by arrangement with the Ministry of ' Pensions. There are already .470 vacant beds in its twe.nty wards. It was made famous during the war by the work of Dr H. D. Gillies <oi New-. Zealand) and his team, who repaired tragic disfigurements by a patient series of operations. Dr- Gillies literally rebuilt their faces. As many as thirty successive operations were sometimes involved for a single case.

Nearly 19,000 patients have passed through the hospital since its opening ‘ in August, 1917. There are ninety-four acres of ground. which include a football field, tennis court, a theatre, and a cinema. , It has a complete scientific equip mentfor treatment by X-rays and light And a laboratory. A medical official of the Ministry of ‘Pensions said yesterday: “The solution ‘would be to hand it over to some hos- I pita! or public body. Otherwise. the sale of ”all the valuable equipment there would fetch only the price of old ‘ iron, The Ministry of Pensions rents it in the same way as it does other hospitals, but war pensioners are necessarily a. diminishing class." , —___...__