HOSPITAL INVESTIGATION URGED

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 1, 2 January 1941, Page 6

HOSPITAL INVESTIGATION URGED

"There is ample justification for the demand that a full investigation should be made into the waste of public money,. avoidable delay, and indeterminate planning by the Wellington Hospital Board in connection with the proposed new hospital buildings," writes "Ratepayer" in a letter to "The Post." Such an investigation, he considers, should cover the last six years, from the time when the board decided to obtain plans for a new hospital. The minute books of the building committee, with those of the full board meetings, he suggests, should make interesting disclosures.

"The Health Department has admitted a measure of responsibility for delay in passing the plans, but the wavering, and sometimes obstructionist, attitude of some board members is mainly to blame.

"Before it is too late —while the evidence may still be seen—the muddled planning of the board should be 'examined in the new stores block, which is nearing completion," the writer continues. "It is a splendid building for its purpose, but close scrutiny of the second floor will reveal that a great deal of costly alteration has been made after construction. A concrete interior wall, which appears to have measured about 50 to 60 feet long by 10 feet high by 6 inches thick, was completely knocked out; doorways have been knocked and drilled out of concrete dividing walls and other doorways filled up with concrete; an excellent wood floor has been laid down covering a very large area, but the board changed its mind and decided not to use the full space for its original purpose, and now a nice, but costly wooden floor unnecessarily covers the concrete in a considerable section of the building. The original plans on which the contractor erected the stores block should be minutely examined, and all the alterations made by the board to almost completed parts of the block should be plainly set out, with the cost of alterations, so that ratepayers may appreciate how competent are some members of the board to be entrusted with the major building scheme."

"Ratepayer" considers that Dr. A. R. Thorne, who recently resigned from the position of superintendent of the Wellington Hospital, should be invited to give expert evidence should an investigation be held, as his evidence would be of great value to the Government and to hospital boards in general when hospital planning and construction are <?under consideration.