Patient Carried In Blanket

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30530, 27 August 1964, Page 8

Patient Carried In Blanket

h. 19-stone maternity patient had to be carried down the stairs at Essex Hospital in a blanket recently, said Dr. L. M. Berry, medical superintendent in chief to the North Canterbury Hospital Board yesterday. This emphasised the need for a lift at the hospital, he said. Alterations to Essex Hospital should be given priority over those planned for Burwood Hospital, he said. Two delivery beds were in one room at Essex, and one had to be screened off from the other. There was no lift, and the entrance to,the hospital was not very prepossessing. He said Burwood’s delivery rooms could be very cramped at times. Mr L. A. Bennett

agreed that the board should seek authority to do the Essex project first Dr. L. C. L. Averill, chairman of the board, said that Burwood’s delivery rooms were meant to be temporary, but there was such an increase in the population that there could be no question of' them being closed. A proper theatre block was needed there. The board agreed that further consideration should be given to finding the best method of providing a more up-to-date delivery suite in the maternity ward at Burwood Hospital by building a two-storey block-on the east side of the ward. But it decided that a plan for alterations to provide a new wing at Essex Hospital should be given greater priority.