“[In the early days] We had tailor shops... we had a boot shop where all the shoes were repaired, and some were even made. We had mat-making, brush-making, and there was gardening which absorbed quite a few of our residents... Carpenter shop, painter shop, and there was usually only 1 or 2 staff with a team of patients who did all the painting of the hospital and that kind of thing.

I felt that patients provided 75% of the labour force at the hospital in the domestic work… in the kitchen, there was 1 cook and 5 or 6 patients.
In the hospital block [there was] a group of working patients who made all the beds and supported the dressing and feeding of the more disabled residents. That was the way throughout the hospital at the time, the more able ones helped in caring for the less able.”