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Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 72, 27 March 1939, Page 11

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HOSPITAL SCHEME.

CASUALTY DEPARTMENT. PROORBeerVX BOARD MOVE. "I hope the present intolerable conditions in the existing casualty department will have ceased by the end of the week," commented Mr. Allan J. Moody, chairman of the Auckland Hospital Board, this morning in reporting that a start had been made to-day ■with the work of providing new and more commodious accommodation for patients using the casualty department. Mr. Moody explained that the actingarchitect to the board, Mr. R. Farrell, was pushing forward with all speed with the alterations to the department. Ward II was being evacuated, and as soon as the partitions in the present admitting office had been pulled down and the walls painted, patients would be transferred from Ward 2. This would enable the erection to proceed of casualty cubicles on the ground floor of the main hospital block.

Under the board's echeme, added Mr. Moody, provision was made for five cubicles for casualty patients, two large dressing stations, one for males and one for females, and a doctors' consulting room. In addition a room would be retained for shock cases, that was, to accommodate cases, which were admitted late at night so as to obviate patients in the wards being disturbed. Tlj: transfer was also being arranged of the admitting office to the main building, and, as already pointed out, the alterations would mean the consolidation of all the essential services in the hospital—admitting, inquiry and casualty—under the one roof.

The first work undertaken by -workmen this morning was the pulling down of partitions in the admitting office, and from now on until the end of the week the scheme, which Mr. Moody said represented one of the most progressive moves made by the new board, will proceed with ell expedition.