TO BE EVACUATED

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 10 August 1942, Page 4

TO BE EVACUATED

PORIRUA MENTAL HOSPITAL SOME PATIENTS COMING TO NELSON One hundred patients from Porirua mental hosiptal are coming to Nelson as the Porirua main building wa. so seriously damaged by the earthquake as to be unuscable. Nearly 800 patients are to be transferred temporarily to other mental hospitals or i<» Rotoron Island, Wairakei Hotel and The Chateau. The building is a large rumbling old brick structure ol varying height, built about 1908 and now obsolete. It is the part about the main entrance, near which are the laundry and kitchen, that has been damaged most by the earthquakes. Cracks opened up in the walls and masonry fell down inside. The floors were deep with fallen plaster after the shake on Sunday morning. During the quake the infant child of a guest of a member of the medical staff was Snatched by its mother from a bed which a moment later was crushed under a mass of brickwork. Had the baby been still on the bed it would certainly have been killed. The patients gave no trouble at all and were .surprisingly calm.

SCHEME FOR REBUILDING

The Director-General of Mental Hospitals, Dr. T. G. Gray, said that there were approximately 1477 patients living at the hospital at the time of the first earthquake. The damage that earthquake did caused 50 patients to be sent to Christchurch and 50 to Kingseat, Auckland. The shock last Sunday morning made the damage more apparent and examinations by engineers of the Public Works Department showed that it was so serious that the main building would have to be evacuated. It was proposed that 100 of the men be sent to Nelson next week, which would leave 600 more patients to be evacuated. Tlie most amenable patients from the other three mental hospitals in the North Island would be transferred to The Chateau and Wairakei and Rotoroa. and patients from Porirua would take their places. Only women would be sent to The Chateau and Wairakei. Two hundred would be sent to The Chateau and 100 to Wairakei. The Chateau is expected to be available to holiday-makers until the end of August.