FIRST PART OF £2,000,000 MENTAL HOME COMPLETED

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23387, 18 October 1950, Page 8

FIRST PART OF £2,000,000 MENTAL HOME COMPLETED

WANGANUI, Oct. 17.—The first completed section of the £2,000,000 Lake Alice villa-style mental hospital near Bulls now holds 49 selected male patients.

They were transferred by the Health Department's division of mental hygiene from institutions at Tokanui (Te Awamutu) Auckland and Porirua. Room for female patients may not be available inside two years. Five and a-half years have passed since the first nails were driven and the first concrete poured in the project. Dogged by shortages of labour and materials, the job has now reached the point where two 50-bed villas and ten 11-bed billas have been completed, plus buildings for the more essential services and 11 staff houses patterned on the familiar State house style. From Dr. R. G. T. Lewis, director of the mental hygiene division, it was learned today that the first patients have been placed in one of the 50-bed villas. There is no organised occupational therapy at Lake Alice yet, simply because there is no need for it, says Dr. Lewis. “The patients are all capable of assisting with botli the inside and outside activities of the hospital,’’ he said. Of the 11-bed villas, Dr. Lewis reports that two are in use as staff quarters. Another will be furnished and equipped by the end of the month and then occupied. Listed for Construction The next buildings listed for construction, he says, are the boilerhouse, laundry and permanent store. _ Eight staff houses are under construction. The hospital’s permanent water supply being piped from the Rangitikei River some distance away will' be available in about six months.

The completion of the service depends on the installation of pumps, which the department has now received, and some minor finishing work to the water treatment plant. Dr. Lewis said the hospital is fully staffed at present with personnel drawn from other institutions. It is unlikely that there will be any necessiyt for the appointment of a full-time medical superintendent for some time yet. At present in charge is Mr. F. B. Thomas, chief clerk. The farm attached to the institution has not yet been taken over by the department. No stock has been acquired for it either. The Lake Alice Hospital area is about 500 acres in extent. The Government purchased it in 1937 from Mr. Alex Stuart. When completed the hospital will be a fully selfcontained township with a staff of about 500, and possibly more than 1000 patients. Lessening Crowd at Porirua Psychiatric cases will be drawn from the southern half of the North Island, thus lessening the crowding of Porirua Mental Hospital anfl to a lesser extent institutions elsewhere in the North Island. The first work was started on the site early in 1944. Contract prices for work since it was completed amounted to a figure above £200,000. The biggest of the 96 buildings planned for Lake Alice will be a 100-bed hospital for bed cases. The institution derives its name from the largest of several lakes in the locality. Lake Alice has an area of 36 acres. A temporary supply of water has been secured from Lake Hickson on the same property. The hospital is less than a mile from the State highway, is 22 miles from Wanganui, and about five from Bulls.—P.A.