CLEANERS WILL KEEP HOSPITAL SPOTLESS

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28987, 31 August 1959, Page 8 (Supplement)

CLEANERS WILL KEEP HOSPITAL SPOTLESS

CCORES of cleaners will move into the wards, special departments, and corridors of Princess Margaret Hospital every day to wash, scour, sweep, dust, and polish. It will take longer to clean the many small rooms in the hospital than the old-style dormitory wards, but simplified designs, rounded corners, and smooth, hard-surfaced materials should help speed the task.

Equally astonishing quantities of other material have gone into this fine building, which combines strength and solidity of construction with simplicity and beauty of design.

A total of 20,400 cubic yards of concrete was used, and 1330 tons of reinforcing steel.

About 112,000 bags of cement and 8900 lorry loads of sand and shingle went into the mixing of the concrete. Material excavated on the site before and during the hospital’s construction amounted to 25,400 cubic yards.

Princess Margaret Hospital has 1381 windows, containing 11,700 panes of glass. Interior fittings include 1996 doors, 443,000 wall tiles, 10,100 acoustic tiles, 397 wash basins, and 241 sinks. If all the piping in the hospital were laid in a straight line it would run from Cathedral square to Rangiora—a distance of 19 miles., Interior decoration of the 2867 rooms in the hospital and the exterior facing of the 1381 windows has taken 4750 gallons of paint.

Tile and chip-marble floors, tile walls, and rubber and linoleum floor coverings are used extensively. They will take the hard wear and tear to which a hospital is subject, and yet be easy to keep clean. Floors are being kept as clear as possible of cluttering furniture. In the patients’ rooms the wall-mounted wardrobes are a full 12in clear of the floor, and the bedside lockers are on free-running castors. The cleaning of the 1381 windows in the hospital—containing 11,700 panes of glass—will be a major task in itself. It is planned to have them cleaned twice a year, inside and out, by a window-cleaning contractor. Windows Cleaning the outsides of the windows on the upper floors will not, however, be the difficult job it might seem. The windows are hinged on from the edge, so that they swing partly into the rooms and can be easily and quickly cleaned from inside the building.

Between 50 and 60 workers,

both men and women, are expected to comprise the contractor’s staff for general hospital cleaning. Men cleaners and wardsmaids will keep the wards spick and span by day, while the hospital’s specialised departments and administration areas will be cleaned at night. Operating theatres, however, will be scoured out after each use by a special team of theatre orderlies. Modern equipment will aid the cleaners’ tasks. All scrubbing and polishing will be done

by machines, and the polish itself will be put on the floors by special mechanical applicators. Pipes A blocked pipe can be a cleaner’s trouble spot. So that these can be cleared quickly, there is a narrow service duct between the sluice and sterilisation rooms in each ward which carries most of the plumbing. This runs right down through all floors and is entered at each level by a door opening on to a steel gangway. This duct also carries the downpipes which drain the flat roofs—and which are a disfiguring feature on the outside walls of many public buildings. Changing and laundering of soiled linen is another cleaning job of sorts. Linen used in the hospital will include 1550 sheets, 1620 dressing sheets, 2500 pillow cases, 1440 bath towels, and 1290 blankets, giving some idea of the magnitude of this task. * Linen

Soiled linen will be collected from the wards daily by the wardsmaids, taken to the ward linen room, and cleared by a system of vast steel chutes to a central linen department in the basement. Here it will be counted by domestic staff, and the required number of pieces ordered in return. v Trucks will call for the baskets of soiled linen each day and take them to the laundry at the Christchurch Public Hospital, returning with fresh supplies of clean material.

Millions Of Bricks

About 1,400,000 redcoloured bricks have been used for the attractive exterior veneer of Princess Margaret Hospital—but about 3,000,000 will have been used to face the walls by the time the whole hospital project is completed.