"GO AHEAD."

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 144, 19 June 1940, Page 11

"GO AHEAD."

BUILDING OF HOSPITAL

ROTORUA RESIDENTS' VOTE.

(By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.)

ROTORUA, this d»y. Despite the fact that the Mayor, Mr. T. Jackson, who had called the meeting to ; test the feeling of residents,. advocated another site, a meeting of" some 40 people held last evening to consider the controversy in regard to the use of Pukeroa Hill for the site of the new public hospital without diseent carried a resolution approving of Pukeroa Hill ae the site, and urging the necessity for the Hospital Board proceeding immediately with, the construction of the new building.

The Mayor outlined at length the negotiation* leading up to the dispute between the Borough Council and the Hospital Board and expressed the opinion that the action of the Crown in vesting the area/ in the Hospital Board was a breach of trust in that the area had been given by the natives to the people of Rotorua, but had been taken over by the Crown for purposes of a military hospital in Ihe last war and had never been permitted to revert back to the residents of Rotorua.

Mr. Jackson advocated that the new hospital, when erected, should I>e built in the Government gardens adjacent to the proposed new Government sanatorium, claiming that the proximity of the two buildings would assist in more economical operation.

The opinion of the majority of the meeting was plainly against thieir however. Other speakens stressed the serious congestion at the hospital and the difficulties under which the staff wa« working, one speaker going so far as to describe the building ae a "derelict," the working conditions ae "outrageous" and the conditions for patients ae "deplorable."

The opinion was expressed that the'dispute between the board and the council should be terminated so that work could proceed upon the immediate erection of the new hospital.

1 After considerable discussion and the putting of the resolution favouring the Pukeroa., site, the Mayor said that he was .dpubtful whether he could accept the resolution as an indication of the opinion of all residents of Rotorua. The meeting, however, carried the resolution without djesent, although some present abstained from voting. A further resolution, paying tribute to the work of the doctors and nurses at the hospital under extremely trying conditions, was carried.