CHANGED PLANS

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 108, 10 May 1938, Page 8

CHANGED PLANS

AND HIGHER COSTS

Mr. J. D; Sievwright, who is a candidate on the Citizens' ticket for election to the Board, last night drew attention to the fact that in 1935 the board decided to spend £155.000 on extensions to the hospital to provide 100 to 150 beds to relieve the pressure. That resolution was abandoned in 1936 when another plan was put forward for 100 beds for surgical and medical cases. The price to be paid for this proposal had not been stated, but with rising costs of building it could not have been less than the estimates made in 1935. Last year the plan determined on in 1936 was shelved, and the board raised a, loan of over half a million to venture upon a proposal that was to cost anything from £750,000 to £1,000,000 to provide for 300 t0;325 beds. The scheme of 1935 was to provide 100 to 150 beds, to cost £1000 to £1500 a bed, including nurses' rooms, ' and the scheme now determined to be carried out by the board- at a cost of £750,000 to ,£ 1,000,000 would cost £2300 to £2500 a bed. The board found this hospital overcrowded in 1935. For three years it had done nothing, to relieve the overcrowding, and : :it ! now' said that even if under-taken-and begun at once this expensive scheme.would take three years to complete?"'''"' In-allhis experience- of local -government management that; said Mr. Siev-, wright, was': the worst specimen of inertia, indifference., and incapacity he had. ever , witnessed. The proposal of the Citizens' candidates was for no more extensions to the Wellington' Hospital, and-"they 'urged the erection of a hospital'in the Hutt Valley at a cost Of £250,000 to provide 250 ,beds, at a cost>of £1000 each.' Common sense, regafdftfr population needs in the Hutt i Valleyy and the pressure at the' hospital itself dictated that the Citizens' scheme should be put in hand at once and completed in about ten months' time. ;