THE CITY HOSPITAL

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 101, 1 May 1941, Page 10

THE CITY HOSPITAL

BOARD DEFENDED

A TREMENDOUS TASK

Hospital management is becoming the liveliest subject at municipal election meetings.

At Newtown last night, Mr. A. W. Croskery (Labour) said that the board had merely endeavoured to build up a decent hospital. He traced the history of the new block to show that Citizens' candidates had voted for more expenditure than Labour members, the Hospital Commission, or the Health Department.

The original estimate for a multistorey building, said Mr. J. Glover (Labour), was £450,000 for 300 beds, while in the Hutt 210 beds were to cost £400,000. Where was the extravagance in the Wellington building?

Mrs. E. M. Gilmer, a Citizens' candidate, vigorously defended the en-, deavours of the Hospital Board to meet ever-increasing demands for patient and staff accommodation. It would be of far greater public service if critics of the board would offer their service in its most difficult and exacting work instead of sniping and faultfinding from outside. When the retiring board took office certain of the wards—the Ewart and the children's wards *particularly—were a disgrace to Wellington; something a^; least had been done by a board whose combined effort was to do the job before it. '

Mr. F. W. Furkert (Citizens' ticket) considered that the Government was entirely right in preventing the board from proceeding with the erection of a nurses' home which would have cost almost £1000 a bed. He approved of T.B. and orthopaedic hospitals in the country.