N.Z. Hospital at Walton

Kai Tiaki : the journal of the nurses of New Zealand, Issue 2, 1 April 1917, Page 98

N.Z. Hospital at Walton

A New Extension

London, 12th January. The No. 2 New Zealand General Hospital at Walton-on-Thames has now been made a complete military unit, with 1040 beds, by taking over a large hotel one mile distant from Mount Felix. The building referred to is the Oaklands Park Hotel, and is official title will be ''Auxiliary A." Lieutenant .-Colonel T. Mill, N.Z.M.C., is in command of the whole, with Captain Norman Dalston as adjutant and quartermaster, and the medical staff and nurses are composed practically and entirely of New Zealanders. Mount Felix was started orininally with 100 beds, then increased to 300 beds, and later to 520. Now a similar number of beds is provided in Oatlands Park Hotel, which will be used primarily as a convalescent camp for our solders from the other New Zealand hospitals. One hundred men from Codford came in last week, and there are now in this annexe 253 patients. The house is exceptionally well adapted for the purposes of a hospital, and the various hotel rooms are all fulfilling a useful purpose. The old ballroom is now the dining room, where 250 men can sit down to a meal at one time, and the bedrooms and coffeerooms make large and airy wards . The house lies higher than Mount Felix, and is farther away from the river. It stands in about fifty acres of ground , and the surroundings are very pleasant. A special kitchen, fitted with, four Aldershot ovens, has been erected, all the labour being sapplied by the men themselves, and this is where the main cooking will be

done for staff and patients. The hotel kitchen will be used for diet cases. There is now in course of erection in the grounds a large recreation room, the funds for which are being provided by the New Zealand War Contingent Association. Oatlands Park has old historic associations a famous palace once stood on this site, and was coveted by Henry VIII, when Sir Thomas Cromwell was the guardian of the then owner. Queen Elizabeth often stayed there for hunting and shooting, and Anne of Denmark, (Queen of James I.) used the palace as a Royal residence. Destroyed in the Civil Wars, the ruins at the Restoration were banded over to the Queen Dowager, who restored them. The property then passed into the family of the Earl of Lincoln, and through him into the hands of a wealthy merchant, until finally the present building was erected. There are now 854 patients in Mount Felix and the Auxiliary, and altogether 3,400 men have passed through the hospital since it was started in August, 1915. It may be added that all the meat, butter, cheese, and a good deal of the sugar is brought from New Zealand. The cost of the commissariat per head per day works out af the low figure of Is 9d.. — From the "Evening Post." (Note) : — We understand that Sister May Chalmer, who went with the first contingent of nurses to England and Egypt, and has been on continuous service in Imperial Hospitals, and hospital ships since June, 1915, has been placed in charge of this auxiliary hospital.