PLANNING NEW HOSPITALS

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27089, 11 July 1953, Page 8

PLANNING NEW HOSPITALS

CREATION OF ADVISORY BUREAU URGED

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, July 10. An architectural advisory bureau to carry out planning research and work out standards would promote the erection of better and more economical hospitals in New Zealand, according to a group of hospital architects who are members of the Auckland branch of the New Zealand Institute of Architects.

Presenting submissions to the Consultative Committee on Hospital Reform today, Mr T. F. Haughey, the group’s representative, said that many private architects had at their own expense made a specialised study of hospital planning and construction overseas. They were just as capable or more capable, because of their local knowledge, of planning hospitals for New Zealand as any experts imported from overseas.

It was considered that the present system of hospital planning was satisfactory, Mr Haughey said. If properly carried out, improvement and development of the system would provide boards with a better, more efficient, and prompter service than one large central division of the Health Department, set up to undertake actual hospital planning. A central division would require a vast staff of specially-trained architects whom it would be impossible to assemble in one Government department, he said. Even if such a staff could be assembled, it would be a cumbersome, impersonal organisation, unable to give boards individual service and attention.

“In our experience there has been none of the chaos which has been alleged,” said Mr Haughey. “Plans have been promptly checked and approved by the Health Department.”