WORK ON HOSPITAL TO BE EXPEDITED

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22654, 3 June 1948, Page 6

WORK ON HOSPITAL TO BE EXPEDITED

(P.A.) DARGAVILLE, June 2. A pledge that the Health Department and herself as Minister of Health would give every assistance possible to enable a start to be made cn building a new hospital in Dargaville was given by Miss M. Howard, yesterday when she met members of the Kaipara Hospital Board following an inspection of the Northern Wairoa Hospital at Te Kopuru. Although the Local Government Loans Board had deferred the Kaipara board’s application for authority to raise a £350,000 loan pending the amalgamation of six Northland hospital districts under the Northland Hospital Board. Both Miss Howard and Dr. L. C. McNickle, director of the hospital division of the Health Department, advised the board to get on with the new hospital. Both emphasised that efforts should be directed to getting one section of the building under way first and. not the whole project. If plans for the first portion, such as one ward and buildings for essential services for it, were sent to the department at once there would only be a few months of delay in having them approved. Tenders for the work could then be called, said Dr. McNickle.

He considered that the loans board could still be moved to give authority for raising the loan.