CONVALESCENT HOME.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20651, 25 August 1930, Page 10

CONVALESCENT HOME.

HOSPITAL BOARD'S PLAN.

SITE IN INFIRMARY GROUNDS.

HISTORY OF MANUREWA LAND.

A correspondent to the Herald suggests that tho Hospital Board should relievo congestion in the general hospital by building a convalescent home on the land it owns at Manurewa. Tho proposal of tho board, however, is to build a 100 bed block for convalescent purposes in tho grounds of tho infirmary. Tlioro is ample space and tho medical staff of that institution could have control. Plans have not yet reached finality, but it is that a building costing about £30,000%0u1d meet the case. The board is at present seeking the Minister's consent to proceod with tho project. For long' tho accommodation of convalescents has imposed pressure in tho wards of the general hospital. At present there are 30 men in tho institution who aro fit to bo moved to a convalescent homo if such a placo existed. Tho average patient is discharged upon rc-aching convalescence, returning only as an outpatient. Tho problem is created by those who liavo no homes to go to or who as boarders cannot receive the attention thoy need. Tho average terra a patient remains in the hospital is about 24 days. It is believed that if a convalescent homo were provided tho term might be reduced to 14 days. Probably the public would favour the infirmary site rather than the Manurewa one for this purpose. The Manurewa property has an area of 124 acres. It is in Hill Road, and is about a mile from the Great South Road. It was bought In 1918 for £75 an acre, the idea at the time being to erect a sanatorium for tubercular patients. It cannot Be regarded as an ideal location for sucli a hospital. One disadvantage is that it has a slightly southerly aspect which deprives it of some of tho morning sun. Further, expert opinion has declared that the* Bombay Hills would bo a much better location.

Tho sanatorium project, however, was never proceeded with. The board reached tho conclusion that a better policy was to use the State sanatoria at Pukcora and Otaki for its tubercular patients, the arrangement existing being quite satisfactory. There was a proposal once that the North Island hospital boards should take over these two institutions, but it was dropped. In the South Island, however, hospital boards run their own sanatoria. The North Canterbury Board has its institution at Cashmere, that of the Otago Board is at Palmerston South and a combined body of boards controls the Waipiata one. Tho Manurewa lan'd remains a farm, leased on terms which enable tho board to resume any part of it at any time. The question of its futuro has never been considered since tho sanatorium schemo was abandoned. Possibly it might bo copsidered as a site for a suburban hospital, which, with a similar institution on the North Shore, is looming in tho future.