POSITION ACUTE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 206, 30 August 1940, Page 3

POSITION ACUTE.

HOSPITAL ACCOMMODATION.

Serious congestion, which hae presented a problem of increasing difficulty to the Rotorua Public Hospital authorities for some time past, has become particularly acute at the hospital at the present time as a result of mild epidemics of certain infectious diseases. The maximum bed capacity of the hospital is set down at 105, but for the whole of the part month the average daily number of occupied beds has been 111. Yesterday, however, there were 124 patients in hospital, 2ft above the maximum with which the hospital should be asked to deal. As a result it has been necessary to give priority to cases according to their urgency, and in one or two cases where admission to hospital hae not been essential, it has been necessary to ask the patients to wait until beds become vacant. The position emphasises the extreme i urgency of the new building plans at present under preparation by the Waikato Hospital Board. It is'anticipated that the building programme will be pushed forward with the least possible delay. The long-disputed question of the lease of the Pukeroa Hill site has now been settled satisfactorily, and no further difficulties stand in the way of the commencement of the new buildings.