HUTT HOSPITAL

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 122, 26 May 1939, Page 6

HUTT HOSPITAL

ESTIMATE OF £435,000

AMENDMENT LOST

"BEATING THE AIR"

The building committee reported to last 'night's meeting of the Wellington Hospital Board that the board's architects, Messrs. Stephenson and Turner, Melbourne, have estimated that the cost of the proposed Hint Valley Hospital, including nurses' home, boilcrhouse,- roadways, fees, etc., would be approximately £435,000. A motion to refer this item back to the committee with a recommendation that the architects be asked to submit plans which would reduce the cost to £325.000 was moved by Mr. W. J. Gaudin, but did not find support.

Mr. Gaudin said he did not know whether the architects, when they were asked to prepare plans, were given any lead. If they Were not, the board could not grumble if they presented the board with' expensive plans. He believed they could get quite an efficient hospital for considerably less than £435,000. It seemed to him to be an- amount very much in excess of the sum-that had been in mind. ■ Very few buildings were erected ,on the first plans drawn by the architect and he thought that in this case, if the matter was referred back to the architects, they would get a lower-priced building. He did not want to see a poor building erected, but at the same time he was convinced that the price of £435,000 was too high. Mr. W. Mason, seconded the motion for the purpose of having the matter discussed. "A RED HERRING." Mr. A. W. Croskery: I think it is only beating the air and that it is just Mrs. M. Dowse: A red herring. It was just another illustration, continued Mr. Croskery, of' somebody new coming on the board and criticising something he had not heard discussed before. The board had considered the plans, certain instructions had been given to the architects, and amendments had been made. Mr. Stephenson had visited Wellington again only recently and that was the time, he suggested, for Mr. Gaudin to query the plans if he wanted to. The board had spent months on. the matter now. He knew that possibly Mr. Gaudin wanted to lessen the rate on ;the ratepayers and he knew that a £300,000 hospital would lessen the rate, but he (Mr. Croskery) was a ratepayer just the same as Mr. Gaudin. •Having once decided the matter, it was'•• only beating the air to a?k for another lot of plans. The cost to the board for the plans would be double. The board, and principally those -people living in the outlying districts, were insistent that a decent hospital should be built in Lower Hutt, and he did not blame them. The price could not be reduced on the present bed accommodation to be provided, plus the maternity hospital, • the outpatients' department, etc. "TO PROVIDE FOR EXTENSION. . Mr. Mason said he had gone carefully into the question of the cost. A - point to be remembered was that the Hutt Valley Hospital was so designed as to provide in the ultimate for 400 beds, and at least £20,000 or £30,000 extra wa.; required to f provide for the foundations and other things necessary for such an extension. Another point was that the hospital and the nurses' home also had to be built to specifications of a standard approved by the Health Department, and it was a high standard, calling for steel-frame, and earthquake-resisting buildings. Although if they were building for millionaires they could not build better, at the same time the1 standard of the specifications was set, and he did not think the cost could be reduced. RATEPAYERS' FEELINGS. If he thought Mr. Gaudin would accomplish anything by referring the item back he would be pleased to support him, said Mr. F. Castle. Mr. Croskery had referred to the feelings of the ratepayers in a somewhat truculent way, but he. was pleased to say. that some of the members of the board had a little feeling of responsibility when talking of hundreds, thousands, and millions of money falling on the taxpayers and ratepayers to bear. However, unless they altered the structure of the Hutt Valley Hospital along the lines of having some more temporary building such as the Social Security building, he did not think they could save anything. Mr. A. H. Carman said that the board had chosen to ask the architect to submit plans of a hospital of the kind that it wanted, and not plans of a hospital drawn in accordance with the amount of money it had to spend. The motion was lost. A special meeting of the board is to be held to consider the making of application for authority to raise a loan for the erection of the.hospital. . TEMPORARY EXPEDIENT. The board authorised the conversion of Mr. Pearce's residence at the Hutt into a maternity hospital as 'a temporary expedient, and decided that the erection of the maternity block of the new hospital be expedited, and that Mr. Pearce's residence be then removed. "How far have we got with the work; when are we going to got it started?" inquired Mrs. S. E. Blake. The chairman (Mr. J. Glover) said that the board was awaiting tho return of Dr. Paget, of the Health Department, to approve the plans. Nothing else was holding it up. The building committee reported J that the architects have been instructed to proceed with the develop- ! ment of the plans and specifications for the necessary alterations to Mr. Pearce's residence, and submit an estimate of the cost, together with the plans, to the Department of Health for approval. doubt, Talbot should be acquitted on the first two counts. . Upon the question of conspiracy to defraud, the jury had to consider only whether the evidence satisfied the jurymen that McKay conspired with Talbot and that Talbot knowingly conspired and agreed with McKay and attempted to carry out frauds. Upon a request by Mr. Noble, his Honour placed a special issue before the jury: Did the accused, before they reached New Zealand, come to an agreement to carry out the conspiracy alleged in the third count? Mi-. Terry said he objected to the issue, and asked to have his objection noted. He accepted the indictment as it stood. The jury then retired. I<fl > vis?