INFECTIOUS CASES.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 65, 18 March 1925, Page 11

INFECTIOUS CASES.

. . ; POOS HOSPITAL FACILITIES, j BOARD ALIVE TO POSITION. "The question of the unsatisfactory j position as regards accommodation at | the City Hospital for infectious cases ! has again arisen," stated the secretary at last evening's meeting of the Auckland Hospital Board, and he added that it was the desire of the Health Department that the Director-General and Dr. Hughes, the Public Health Officer, should confer with the Board. The chairman, Mr. \V. Wallace, said he was trying to arrange the conference. There was no doubt that the hospital required an admission block for infectious cases. Sometimes patients whose ailments are diagnosed as measles proved to have scarlet fever. The admission ward .that was l.ceded was one which would have a number of observation rooms, so that cases under observation would not come in contact with others. When the scarlet fever ward was extended some time ago Dr. Maguire then suggested that two or three rooms should be provided for observation purposes, but the Department's view at that time was that there was enough room, and they would not permit the Board to carry out the medical superintendent's suggestion. However, they had now begun to take a different view. The Board itself had gone some distance in the matter for sketch plans had been -prepared, but owing to there being so much building in prop-ess it had been deferred. Mr. Wallace added that he hoped that in the near future buildings 11 and 12, which were the wooden premises near the main entrance, would be removed and made available for some seventy patients. There ought certainly to be a block of buildings available in the event of an epidemic of any kind breaking out, even if the premises were only of a temporary nature. The number of deaths that had taken place in America made one feel alarmed, and it was to be hoped the epidemic would not come to New Zealand. All the same the Board ought to be in a position to meet an emergency. He had thought for a long time past that they lacked accommodation for dealing with infectious cases in ease lof an epidemic. It was agreed that the conrerence with the authorities would take the form of a special meeting of the Board.