VALUE OF SUNLIGHT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 72, Issue 112, 13 May 1929, Page 7

VALUE OF SUNLIGHT

DISEASES OF CHILDREN IMPORTANT VICTORIAN SCHEMESYDNEY, April 4. In vi.ew of the controversy among doctors in Britain, it is of interest to note that one of the best equipped hospitals in Australia for treatment with sunlight and rtificial rays is a branch of the Melbourne Children’s Hospital, nearly completed on the seafront at Frankston at a cost of £90,000. It will be able to trieat nearly all the child cripples in Victoria by helio-therapy, hydro-therapy, and ultra-violet rays. Helio-therapy, or sunlight treatment, was begun at the Children’s Hospital in Melbourne in 1922. Bone diseases were treated on the balconies. The demand for the treatment increased to such an extent that now quarters had to be provided. The success of the treatment continued when the patients werjg transferred to a more suitable locality, and the hospital authorities reported that within the first 12 months many chronic tuberculosis and paralysis cases, who had been in splints for three or four years, w'erc walking. Although the maximum age for entry into the Children’s Hospital is 14 years, for orthopaedic case the limit has been increased to 16 years. The new hospital has room for 100 patients, and there is space for considerable expansion as soon as funds will permit. Provision is being made for charity cases only, but if necessary it could be converted into a full community hospital. The question is being asked whether it is fair to deprive the children of the Wealthy and the others who do not -d charity of the benefits of such a modern, up-to-date institution, which promises to do such a vast amount of good. It is pointed out that the diseases that are to be treated are by o means confined to the children of the poor. But this point raised the. whole question of hospital administration —a question facing New Zealand just as much as Australia—and a satisfactory solution of the difficulties seems to be as far off as ever.

All the treatment at this new Melbourne hospital will be given under onfe roof. In a special operating block with a post operating ward, all patients after operation can recover sufficiently before going among the other patients again. There is an X-ray department, laboratories and modern equipment generally. There is a State school on the property for elementary education, and boys will be taught the rudiments of some craft and the girls domestic science.

Another department is for psycotherapy, or massage, and re-education of joints and muscles for cases such as infantile paralysis. There will also be a hydro-therapy department, in W'hich is a shallow bath of. sea water, which will be irrigated ovjer the child with small pipes as he lays in the bath. Artificial rays will give sun treatment when the weather is dull.