COST OF NURSES’ HOME

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25160, 16 April 1947, Page 5

COST OF NURSES’ HOME

ESTIMATE OF £l3OO A ROOM

DISCUSSION BY WELLINGTON CITY COUNCIL

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, April 15. It will cost £l3OO a room for a 100-bed nurses’ home to be erected by the Wellington Hospital Board. This was stated at yesterday’s meeting of the Wellington City Council, which approved the board’s proposed loan of £70,000 to complete the building. During the discussion, Mr W. J. Gaudin, a board member, said that lack of staff had compelled the closing of 300 beds at the hospital, and possibly more might have to be closed. Staff could be obtained, but there was no accommodation for them. The board wanted to go ahead • with the new nurses’ block so that it could reopen the closed beds. The Mayor (Mr W. Appleton) said that a plan for a 130-bed hospital in 1937 did not receive Ministerial approval because of the excessive cost. Finally, two four-storeyed blocks, each to accommodate 100 nurses, were decided on. Both sets of foundations had been completed at a cost of £43.000. It was most desirable that the building of the first block should proceed because of the accommodation problem Mr W. H. Stevens asked the reason for the high cost, and said it seemed that facilities for nurses would be simple and unpretentious, yet, overall, it would cost more than £lOOO for each nurse. “Foundations Costly” Mrs E. M. Gilmer said that the foundations had been costly because of the depth it had been necessary to go. Rooms would not be much more than cubicles, sleeping one. At present some nurses were sleeping two to a room, which was a cause of dissatisfaction. The board was concerned at the cost, but the building would be plain. Having an estimate, what could it do?

The Mayor said that a few years ago he had been interested in the building of a block of flats providing much belter accommodation than would the new nurses’ home, but the cost was only one-third of that now being discussed.

Mr B. J. Todd said that a house for a family of five, exclusive of the section could be built for around £2OOO. That worked out at £4OO a person. Here was a nurses’ home at £lOOO a nurse.

Mr M. Fraser said that the estimate was in line with those for institutional buildings over the last few years. These were around £lOOO a person. Mr M. Galloway said that a house for a married couple and a child could not be built to-day for under £2500.