COSTLEY INFIRMARY WARD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13613, 5 December 1907, Page 6

COSTLEY INFIRMARY WARD.

PROVISION FOR AGED INVALIDS. The new infirmary -ward at the Costley Home, to bo formally opened by the Hon. George Fowlds, Minister for Public Health, on Monday next, is a thoroughly modern, and well-equipped building, reflecting credit alike on the Hospital and Charitable Aid Board and the designer and builder. It is a one-storey building, 200 ft long by 30ft wide, and the height- of the ward from floor to ceiling is 13ft. The structure throughout js in brick, finished in red' cement, with white joints, surmounted by a slate roof,, with tiled ridging.;' inside the walls are finished with a tiled dado, '3ft 6in high, and above that is plaster painted. The interior of thebuildiug consists of one large ward, with-provision for 30' beds then there are two small wards, with one bed each, and one ward with two beds for special cases, while at the north end there is a sunroom, 18ft by 15ft, fronted with glass, this being for the old people on days when the wind is too cold to allow them outside. The wards are heated by hotwater radiators, the only coal fire being hi the sunroom, where the old men may sit and smoke or read in winter time. The floors, throughout are in reinforced -concrete, covered with wood, and the ceilings are of stamped steel. Glass' partitions between the sunroom and the ward allow the sunlight to stream down the ward, and there is a. window between each two beds', and another in each corner. At the south end, are the dispensary and ward scullery, a room for patients' clothes, with 34 lockers, and a room for clean linen, while the twobed ward is at the same end. On the cast side of the main ward is the sanitary tower of one storey, similar to the hospital towers, and cutoff from the main room by a "cross ventilating" lobby. Two bathrooms, and lavatories, etc., ore provided in the tower. The floor of the building beinm , 2ft from the ground, an inclined way, 20ffc long, instead of steps, is provided at the main entrance, which faces the west, and tins'/leads into a porch. The single-bed, wards are placed one on each side of the sunroom, and they have separate doors of exit, being, intended for dying patients or cases which re- 1 quire quietness. It has beau a great fault in the hospital up to t the, present that there' was no .provision for. dying-, cases,; these patients .simply being placed „ia v of, the 'ward, and screened off* -. - .V>•"■<<-...'.