Dominion’s Finest Hospital Taking Shape At Cashmere

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27705, 8 July 1955, Page 9

Dominion’s Finest Hospital Taking Shape At Cashmere

New Zealand’s finest hospital is taking shape at Cashmere. The empty rooms and echoing corridors give little hint of the bustling activity of a large, modem hospital, but even now the immensity of the building and its ultimate beauty may be appreciated.

The first stage of construction of the hospital is scheduled to end by May, 1957, and the contract is at present considerably ahead of schedule. This stage includes blocks A, B, C, D, E., and F, with eight 30-bed wards, administrative offices, admission facilities, kitchens, stores and other departments. The second stage, which is sch eduled to reach completion at the same time as stage one, covers half the X-ray facilities, pathology, physiotherapy, operating theatres and special surgical departments such as gynaecology and urology It -does not include outpatients’ clinics. The third stage calls for the duplication of blocks B and C in blocks G and H. the erection of block I, for outpatients. Tttfs stage gives a further 300 beds.

The nurses’ home, which is also to be built on the 28-acre site, will give a fair indication of the immense demands of modern hospital services. It will accommodate 400 nurses and 160 household staff —the equivalent of a 560-bed modern hotel.

The structural work for stage one has now been completed, and the finishing work is well advanced. Already 500,000 bricks have been used as an exterior veneer, but six times that number will be required before the hospital is completed. The floor area for stage one totals about 170,000 square feet. The amounts of materials needed are astonishing. Already the ■contractor has used 13,000 cubic yards of concrete, the total boxed area being about 750,000 square feet. The reinforcing steel used in this stage of the building operation totals 850 tons. From Cashmere road, the most advanced portions of stage one can be seen. These are block A, which contains the gracefully-curved entrance, block B, a rectangular section on the south side of A, and block C, which is L-shaped and is south of block B. The entrance vestibule will have a plaster finish to the exterior, with armour plate glass doors, and this vestibule may well be regarded as typical of the hospital design as a whole—it is spacious and sunny, and incorporates some radical departures from New Zealand tradition.

The entrance vestibule, which will be the main circulating room for visitors, is 80 feet long and 40 feet deep, and from it four elevators will take them to the various floors. There will be an inquiry counter in one corner, a shop in another selling such things as flowers, sweets, cigarettes, periodicals, and toys. Such shops are a feature of hospitals in the United States, where they are managed in many instances by voluntary organisations.

Off the vestibule there will be two cloak rooms, so that in wet weather visitors will be able to leave umbrellas and outside coats before going to the wards. The vestibule is being finished in Hanmer marble, and when it is completed it will have a most attractive appearance. Along the full length of the large windows there will be boxes for flowers grown in the hospital’s own hot-houses. Above the entrance there are vestibules on each floor, and the principal of the firm of architects responsible for the hospital (Mr A. H. Manson) explained .to a reporter that the vestibules would serve 120 patients—half in blocks A and B and the other half in blocks G and H. These vestibules, too, will have huge flower boxes; the views they offer of the mountains, and their north-westerly aspect, are ideal attributes. Earthquake Precaution Each of the hospital blocks is separated from the next by a space of about four inches, as a precaution against the effects of earthquakes. Each block will be free to move independently. The gaps are covered by metal plates, fastened at one end and ablfe to slide at the other, rather like the platforms between railway carriages.

In each of the Cashmere wards there will be six single rooms and six holding four beds each, and from their present appearance they are going to compare more than favourably with modern hotel accommodation. The single rooms open on to balconies which face the mountains, and which from the higher floors give a splendid view of the surrounding district. These rooms are each 120 square feet. At the west end of block C there is the solarium—the pattern being repeated floor by floor—24 feet by 18 feet, from which the stairs run to the outside exit at the south-west corner of the building. A departure from the usual bracket fitting in the wards will be the overhead bed unit. These contain switches for the general illumination of the rooms, the patient’s bed light, which is controlled by the patient himself, a radio and earphones which give the patient the choice of two stations, and for the nurses’ call system. When the patient calls a nurse a tiny light shows on the patient’s panel, a red light shines outside the ward door, and an indicator light shows up on the nurses’ service panel. These stay on until a nurse has come to the particular patient and cancelled the call on the patient’s switch panel. Each bed light is shielded from the others, and the general illumination is directed at the ceiling for the comfort of the patients. All the ward window sills are handsomely finished in tiles the shade of which is repeated throughout a particular floor, and which varies from floor to floor. This plan has a background as practical as aesthetic—wards and rooms are more easily identified by patients, visitors, and staff with such a colour scheme. These coloured tiles are found again and again on each floor, even in the bathroom

suites, of which there are two for every. 30 patients. The L shape of block C has one particular advantage from the nursing i point of view. From the nurse’s station, at the corner of the L, the charge 1 sister has full visual control of the • complete ward unit. Each floor has cleaners’ rooms, equipment rooms, rooms for patients’ clothing, and ward kitchens from which the meals prepared in the main kitchens will be served. Kitchens usually provide a fair share of hospital noise, but these ones have acoustic tiles to reduce sound. These and other service rooms have tiles; there will be rubber floor coverings in the corridors and linoleum in the wards. • Endless Variety of Rooms

A tour of the hospital brings a seemingly endless succession of rooms designed for a wide variety oi purposes. The sterilising room and sluice room are both served by the main pipe duct, which- is placed between them, and the engineer in charge will be able to work in the duct to isolate any particular part of the equipment should a fault develop. There are treatment rooms in which minor operations or other treatment will be given, affording patients a privacy often denied them in open wards. In the soiled linen rooms vast steel chutes are in position, down which soiled linen from the wards will be dropped to the basement. Infectious linen will be removed by porters to keep. it quite clear of the other. Those operating the chutes will use a tell-tale light system which warns each floor when a door is open on any other floor. But these are only a few of the special rooms which are needed in a modern hospital—there are also switchboard rooms, ward linen rooms, a laboratory for the house surgeons to do their own testing, bays for storing wheel chairs and wheel stretchers.

On the fifth floor of block A the resident medical officers ■will have their quarters—a dining-room, a kitchen, a lounge, and a recreation room. Each doctor will have a bed-sitting-room, with a wardrobe, hand basin, writing desk and dressing table. The doctors will have a sun deck on the roof of the hospital, and it could hardly be more favourably situated.

On the same floor there will be the housekeepers’ quarters, and bedrooms on the south side will be kept for those who are on night duty and do not want sunshine while they are sleeping. At the very top of block A there is a room housing two huge water tanks, one of them 10 feet in diameter. The hospital’s domestic water supply will come from these tanks.

A large ramp beginning at ground level runs into the basement of block E, on the south side of the main building line. This will be used for 'the dispatch of garbage and soiled linen. There is also a loading platform for receiving supplies such as bulk vegetables. Between the basement and this floor there will be an elevator for carrying heavy goods. There is a room for washing milk cans, and a vegetable store for holding green foods used from day to day, at a controlled temperature. There is a vegetable preparation room and the main kitchen is a vast hall, 80 feet long and 36 feet wide. Beside it are rooms for butchers, for the preparation of meat, for the storing of fish, for the preparation of fish, a bread room and a buttery, rooms for storing eggs and butter, all of them at controlled temperatures. There is a cold food preparation room, a diet kitchen for the preparation of special meals, even a huge pot wash room where utensils will be kept. Another bay off the main kitchen is designed for washing the electric food trolleys and nearby there are the dietitians’ offices.

A new device being installed at the hospital is a push-button control panel by which visiting doctors register their arrival. The telephone operator can then pass messages to them. Doctors will register their departure in the same manner.. On the grouhd flo4r of block B are the offices for nursing and general hospital administration, a medical library and conference room, the offices of the surgical and medical registrars, the matron and the assistant matron and a strong room. The ambulance dock is on the ground floor of block D, beside the porters’ office and the patients’ examination room. The admission system is such that incoming will have a preliminary examination in this department, instead of in a ward. Block E is behind block B and it will contain the dispensary and dispensary stores for out- and in-patients, a sewing room, a domestic staff cafeteria. » In block D there will be a waiting room for the relatives of incoming patients, and a post office which will handle all the hospital mail and have such facilities as money order telegrams.

The contractor (Mr C. S. Luney) says he is particularly pleased with the attitude and interest of the 100 men working on the hospital. The atmosphere, he said, was the best he had known on any job. The average New Zealand tradesman was as good as any other, provided his interest in the work could be maintained. In the case of Cashmere there had been scope for the men to show initiative and they had been able to see the results of their own efforts.

The results of those efforts can already be appreciated in the handsome design and execution of the partly-furnished building; soon they will have their full reward in service to the public.