The hill of health: aspects of community at the Waipiata Tuberculosis Sanatorium, 1923-1961.

Sanatorium care formed the basis of New Zealand's response to the problem of tuberculosis in the first half of the twentieth century. The dissatisfaction with institutions that arose in the 1960s has coloured the way sanatoria are remembered by portraying them as a misguided predecessor to the drug therapies, which eventually made sanatoria obsolete. Care in the community was assumed to be a more cost-effective and humanitarian option, allowing patients to live 'normal' lives in society. Through a case study of Waipiata Sanatorium, I hope to challenge the belief that sanatorium experiences were usually unpleasant, that community care was more 'humanitarian, 'and that 'institutional' and 'community' are opposing forms of care.