READY FOR USE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26748, 17 April 1948, Page 4

READY FOR USE

'NEW HOSPITAL BUILDINGS NURSES’ DINING ROOM BLOCK The nurses’ kitchen and dining room block at the Dunedin Hospital, which has been under construction since November, 1945, will be ready lor occupation in about two weeks’ time. The ground floor includes a maids’ dining room, with accommodation for about 40 members of the staff, a nurses’ dining room with accommodation for some 300 nurses, and a sisters' dining room which will accommodate approximately 60 sisters. ' Attached to these dining rooms is a modern kitchen, in which the latest cooking equipment is installed, together with dish washer, refrigerating and vegetable preparation rooms and store. The vegetable store will be kept at a low temperature in order to remove any offensive odours. There is a refuse room where the refuse will be kept in monel metal containers, and provision has also been made for sterilising the cans after use, as well as for washing and sterilising the milk cans. The ground floor will also include a dietitians’ office, bread store, cook’s store, pastrycook's kitchen, sisters’ store where daily supplies will be kept, and large staff quarters, fitted with individual lockers, shower and lavatory accommodation. The first floor comprises lecture rooms, as well as a demonstration room for student nurses, and another lecture room is being fitted up for the screening of films. On the second floor there is a social hail, with a viewing balcony, and provision has been made for two complete badminton courts, a stage for plays and concert work, a small servery to meet requirements for supper when the ha7l is used for dancing, a locker room for the badminton • equipment, a store room for chairs, and lavatory accommodation. The building will have high-press’ure steam heat, and the lecture rooms, kitchen and dining rooms will have plenum ventilation. All the ceilings in the dining rooms, kitchen and servery, and in son>e of the rooms on the first floor have been treated with’acoustical plaster tiles for the purpose of improving the acoustic properties of these rooms. It has been noticed when the dish - washing machine is in operation that the noise has been reduced to a minimum. An innovation in the kitchen is the installation of compressed air valves attached to the steam-jacketl.ed pans, which will permit the lids to be lifted and closed without handling by members of the staff. Up to the present, this method has not been used elsewhere in the Dominion. The new building is situated on the south side of the existing Nurses’ Home between Castle and Cumberland streets, and will be at the rear of the new out-patients’ block facing Cumberland street when that work is proceeded with. The contractors for the. kitchen and dining room block were Messrs Mitchell Brothers, Builders, Ltd., and the work was supervised by the board’s architects, Messrs Mason and Wales.