SICK INMATES DISCHARGED – Menace of Water Shortage 1929

A serious position has arisen at the Greenvale Consumptive Sanatorium, about five miles from Broadmeadows, which is conducted by the commission.

The management of the sanatorium which, until three weeks ago treated about 70 in-patients of both sexes, has been forced gradually to dismiss many of the inmates of the institution owing to a short- age of water, and, unless steps are taken immediately to replenish the supply, the sanatorium will be forced to close in about 10 days.

Most of the patients at the sanatorium are in the first stages of tuberculosis, and, provided they receive proper treatment, will improve sufficiently to engage in outdoor and other light occupations.

If they do not receive that treatment they may become worse, and once the disease is imbedded in the system it is impossible to eradicate it.

From the point of view of the safety of people likely to come in contact with them, it is essential that infective persons should not be allowed to mix with the general public until they are declared “arrested.”

The chaplain of the sanatorium (the Rev. G.. W. Ratten of Broadmeadows, when spoken to yesterday, confirmed a report of the conditions existing at the sanatorium, and the report that patients were being carried out of the institution because of the water shortage. “On account of the serious shortage of water,” he said;

“those patients who had homes to which to go were told three weeks ago that they would have to leave.

The sanatorium is dependent entirely for its water supply on tanks and dams. The dams are now practically empty, and the supply in the tanks will last only some days.

So acute has the position become that the patients remaining have been told that they must be prepared to leave shortly, and many of them have no homes to go to. They are not able to work, and will be left destitute on the streets.

Apart from the humanitarian point of view, these people are a serious danger to the public.

Baths are out of the question now at the sanatorium, and one poor fellow told me yesterday that he had not had a bath since, the first patients were forced to leave.

Water could be obtained by carting it from Essendon, nine miles away, to which place the water supply of the Metropolitan Board of Works is laid on.

The sanatorium is not suitable for patients in the winter time. I have seen the clothes blown off the beds by strong, cold winds, which come across the district during the winter months.

The whole question of the sanatorium should be considered, and immediate efforts should be made to provide water so that patients can still bb treated in full numbers.

Conditions at present are a scandal to the State, and cause the gravest concern.”

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/1890213