CHRISTCHURCH
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Women’s Shelters, Middle Sanatorium at Cashmere, 1913. Note the wheels and prefabricated construction. Photo: Christchurch City Libraries, File Reference: CCL-Arch887-065
Cashmere Sanatorium open-air shelter heritage listed WORDS: Rosemary Baird
A rare surviving open-air shelter for tuberculous patients in Huntsbury, Christchurch has been entered on the New Zealand Heritage List/Rārangi Kōrero.
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n 19th century Christchurch, tuberculosis (TB), a global killer throughout human history, was a serious cause of death. The one cure for TB, developed in the second half of the 19th century, was sanatorium care. Rest, sunlight and fresh air were understood to arrest the progress of the disease. In 1903, Nurse Maude set up an open-air HŌTOKE • WINTER 2023
consumptive tent camp amongst the sand dunes of New Brighton. The camp closed a few years later, but not before it had highlighted the tragedy of TB. In 1906, the North Canterbury Hospital and Charitable Aid Board decided to build a sanatorium for consumptive patients in the Port Hills of Christchurch. Over the
next few years, the first buildings were constructed: an administration and dining building, disinfecting laundry, morgue, nurses’ home and portable patient shelters. Opened in 1910, the sanatorium was a place where patients in the early stage of TB could recover through rest, ample Heritage Quarterly
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