CROSS-INFECTION

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 64, 16 March 1945, Page 6

CROSS-INFECTION

DANGER AT TAIHAPE OVERCROWDING IN HOSPITAL O.ti. WANGANUI, this day. Danger of cross-infection existed in the Taihape Hospital because of the deplorably overcrowded condition, declared Mr. T. C. Kincaid, of Taihape, when the Wanganui Hospital Board was considering a five-year building plan. Doctors had to change in a lavatory used by all and sundry before entering the operating theatre, the roof of which was scaling. An urgent need existed for a special children's ward. Mr. Kincaid said that when he visited the hospital unannounced recently he found 21 children, most of them suffering from infectious diseases, mixed up in the men's and women's wards. The wards were a mixture of ordinary patients, serviceman, chronic cases and" crying children. It was the board's duty to relieve the situation. He moved that a 16bed children's ward and a doctors' changing room be provided as soon as possible, and that alterations be made to the isolation block to provide suitable accommodation for the domestic staff. The motion was carried, the board agreeing to include £15,000 in the building programme for the work.