Effects Of Delay In Work On Hospital Wing

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30186, 18 July 1963, Page 15

Effects Of Delay In Work On Hospital Wing

The dispute between the Canterbury Carpenters’ Union and the Canterbury Master Builders’ Association, which has stopped work on the new St. Helens Hospital wing for five weeks could have quite serious consequences if it continued much longer, the medical superintendent of the hospital (Dr. H. T. Jennings) said yesterday.

The union declared the job, black after the carpenters had been asked to do work which they considered to be outside the terms of their award.

Every day the completion of the new wing was delrved meant the same delay in the availability of the hospital's new X-ray facilities, which were to be in the wing, said Dr. Jennings. The central sterilising unit, milk room and

premature unit planned to be provided in the existing part of the hospital once the new part was completed would be correspondingly delayed. Delay in the completion of the wing also meant delay in tlie provision of more maternity beds. Although at the moment the pressure on beds was not insupportable, noone could say what the position might be by the time the new wing came to be commissioned, if the present hold-up continued. “In short, everything connected with the development of the hospital is now in abeyance. The longer the hold-up continues, the longer the public will be deprived of the facilities the hospital will be able to offer when the new wing is completed,” Dr. Jennings said. Union’s Pledge Of Support Full financial and moral support to the building workers affected by the St. Helens Hospital dispute was pledged last evening by the executive of the Christchurch branch of the New Zealand Tramway and Public Passenger Transport Authority Employees’ Industrial Union of Workers.