T.B. HOSPITAL

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 106, 31 October 1941, Page 6

T.B. HOSPITAL

PAEKAKARIKI SITE

BUILDING OF LIGHT TYPE

The chairman, Mr". F. Castle, reported v to 4he Wellington Hospital Board last flight that the purchase of property at Paekakariki as a site for a tuberculosis hospital is to be completed 6n of Ministerial approval. '

Mr. Castle said that he hoped that the erection of the building would not be deferred or delayed. There were 350 patients under the board waiting to go into a T.B. hospital, and the North Island as a whole was lacking in accommodation for T.B. patients.

Ideas of hospital buildings were changing, said Mr. Castle, and any proposal to erect a 100-year or even a 50-year block would not be acceptable. Therefore a lighter structure would be more likely to be considered, and the cost should be lower. Therefore, if after 20 years it was . found that the building was out of date no great sum would have been sunk. Treatment of T.B. and other diseases was changing rapidly and it was probable that methods would be very different in 10 or 15 years.

Reference was made in passing to the transfer of soldier patients from the racecourse hospital, and the chairman and several members expressed thanks and appreciation of the cooperation of the Wellington, Racing Club, without which treatment could not have been given soldier patients at Trentham.

All patients were evacuated from the racecourse hospital before the opening of the last meeting, said Mr. Castle, in answer to a question.