DEVONPORT BASE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 38, 13 August 1941, Page 8

DEVONPORT BASE

NEW SICK QUARTERS

(P.A.) AUCKLAND, August 12. The first patients have been admitted to the naval sick quarters, built on a commanding site which overlooks the Devonport Naval Base. The construction of the building is a further step in the general reorganisation of the base begun some years ago and accelerated since the war started. Hitherto patients have been accommodated in huts flanking the former parade and sports ground, but this is now occupied by large shore barracks, still in process of construction, and the old sick quarters have been demolished. Except that they do not yet possess an operating theatre, the new • sick quarters rival in every way the re-cently-opened services hospital in the Auckland Domain. It is the present intention to send theatre cases to the city, but an extension to the building can easily be made, and. there is ample room on the site for provision of a theatre. There are three wards, each of eight beds, together with completely selfcontained isolation quarters and an officers' wing which includes cabins and a lounge. Also included in the building are an X-ray room, eyesight testing room, and sun corridors. In addition to serving the base as sick quarters, the building, which is of concrete, is also to be used as a training school for sick bay attendance, and special accommodation has been provided for this purpose. A feature of the staffing is the inclusion of nursing sisters and women cooks. This- is in accordance with the Service policy of using women as much as possible to release men for combatant duty. Men who are trained as sick-berth attendants will expect to go to sea after their courses are completed.