NURSES’ HOME IN HAMILTON

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29024, 13 October 1959, Page 27

NURSES’ HOME IN HAMILTON

tailing Of Tend ers

Deferred

(New Zealand Press Association) HAMILTON, October 12. Disappointment was expressed by members of the Waikato Hospital Board today when a letter w - as read from the Department of Health advising that approval for the calling of tenders for the erection of an eighty-storey nurses’ home at the Waikato Hospital should be deferred pending the completion of the working drawings and specifications for the proposed six-storey ward block at the hospital. The board approved a reply written by the secretary (Mr J. H. Chapman) which said the board was most concerned and extremely disappointed to learn of the decision of the departments’ works committee that the home project should be deferred until documents had been completed.

Closing Stages Mr Chapman said the board’s architectural staff was on the closing stages of the ward block drawings. The board was anxious to have the nurses’ home contract commenced and brought to the building stage before the time arrived for a start on the ward block.

There were two major contracts, and their sites were not far apart, said Mr Chapman. It would be as well to have one commenced before the other so as to avoid congestion as much as possible. Provision was made in the nurses’ hotne plans for a tutorial section, which was urgently needed. The existing accommodation for teaching nurses was very poor. The board would like the nurses’ home completed some months before the ward block, as this would give it an opportunity of building up nursing staff, he said. At the present time there were 125 nurses at the Waikato Hospital living out, and this situation w’ould become more acute when the Rothwell Home was removed and when the Waikato branch of the University of New Zealand was opened next February. Both would make the accommodation problem in Hamilton more difficult.