important question of providing special accommodation

… In their annual report the managing committee of the Melbourne Hospital raises the important question of providing special accommodation for consumptive patients. Though in recent years a distinct advance has been made towards meeting requirements in this direction, very much more remains to be accomplished before sufferers of small means can be dealt with in a manner satisfactory to themselves and to the public. Excellent work is certainly being done in the Government sanatorium at Greenvale, near Broadmeadows, but it is only a beginning, thought a most creditable beginning. There from 40 to 50 inmates can be treated under approved modern conditions. They have plenty of wholesome food, fresh air, and sunlight. Many have already derived great and it is believed lasting benefit from their stay there. Left in their own homes, without the means to secure proper attendance, they would have been a constant source of infection. At Greenvale they are not only put in the way of recovery, but kept from being a menace to the public health. What is needed is a large extension of the Greenvale system. The sanatorium itself should be enlarged, and similar institutions might be established elsewhere in the country. The open-air cure does not necessitate costly buildings, and the Broadmeadows experiment proves that for a comparatively small expenditure, a large number of patients can be adequately housed.

At Greenvale, only cases in which there is reasonable hope of ultimate recovery are received. For the incurable the Austin Hospital alone among our public institutions professedly makes provision, and, even with the Kronheimer wing, it cannot accommodate all the chronic tuberculosis patients in the state. In addition to an expansion of the Greenvale system, something more needs to be done for the hopeless cases. For the sake of the public health as many as possible should be removed from homes where they cannot but be centres of infection. As it is, the committee of the Melbourne Hospital has still to complain that many consumptive patients are practically forced upon them. There is nowhere else for them to go. A large general hospital in the middle of a big city is the last place to which they ought rightly to be sent. Its beds are constantly required for urgent cases of accident or acute disease, and ought not to be given up to those who are either chronic invalids or at least take many months to cure. In such a hospital, too, the consumptives themselves cannot possibly receive the treatment which they need. They ought to be away from the smoke and dust of the city in the clear atmosphere of the open country.
…

Source: The Argus (Melbourne, Vic); Thu 12 July 1906 (Page 4)
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/9673195