HOSPITAL BUILDING PROJECTS

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 45, 17 November 1941, Page 8

HOSPITAL BUILDING PROJECTS

Another Scheme To Come Before Board PROGRESS IN HUTT VALLEY With the object of alleviating difficulties caused by the overcrowding of the main institution, a comprehensive scheme of building projects will be brought before the Wellington Hospital Board this mouth with a 1 view to its immediate adoption. It is understood that a very extensive report will be submitted. . .

Progress on the construction of the Hutt Valley general hospital, which provides for 210 beds, has been slow, because of delays caused by wartime conditions. It had .been hoped to have this block available by now for occupation. With the object of relieving congestion in the main Wellington institution, the building in light materials of an emergency ward of 100 beds as part of the Hutt block is being expedited. Patients of a class not requiring constant medical and surgical attention. but principally nursing, will be transferred there, and it is hoped to have this ward in occupation before next winter. . Work is proceeding also on a similar 100-bed ward which will accommodate mild infectious cases from the Treutlurm camp during the war period. This ward is designed on identical lines with the other, and after its use for military patients is no longer required, it will be available for general hospital purposes. The nurses’ home, three stories in the centre and two in the wi “SS, is nearing completion. It will provide 100 beds. Good progress has been made on the kitchen and dining-room section in the centre of the Hutt hospital block. It is intended that these facilities, with the nurses’ home and two emergency wards, shall operate as a complete unit as soon as practicable, making available over 200 beds for patients before the winter. "Work is not being pushed meanwhile on the two other wards and the administrative block which will complete the Hutt hospital os planned. Orthopaedic Department. Constructed ae part of the orthopaedic department, in the work of wlncli a great increase is expected as more men requiring treatment return from the war, the plaster block which has been added to the main Wellington hospital is nearly finished. It will be used for the setting of fractures, and incorporates part ot tne old plaster room, where work has been carried on under considerable difficulty. A new special form of orthopaedic table is on order from America. Immediately above the plaster block, as the second story of the extension, is the new eye, ear, throat and nose department, which deals with many outpatients. There will oe two operating theatres, instead of the one formerly available. This will facilitate the work. There will be examination rooms and, by a readjustment of space, five or six more beds can be provided. These new facilities should be in use by Christmas. Ibis accommodation was originally proposed for the centennial block, which has been in abeyance for so long that it is now suggested, there is not much prospect ot it being built, at least tor a number of Another extension wnich is practically completed at the main institution is the schoolroom and glassed-in sundeck for the children’s medical ward. It will serve the whole children’s hospital, in which there are at present 134 patients, and give them a lovely open-air balcony. Though a tender has been accepted, work has not yet begun on the new dining-room ami kitchen block for tne nurses, who now number 591.