EMERGENCY PLANS

Opotiki News, Volume III, Issue 315, 25 September 1940, Page 2

EMERGENCY PLANS

HOSPITAL FACILITIES DR. WATT’S INSPECTION Dr. M. 11. Watt, Director-General of Health visited Opotiki during the week-end, in connection with hospital emergency plans. Dr. Watt later left for Giteborne. In a statement Dr. Watt said: “Preparations to meet emergenciesof the. kind the Government regulations were designed to meet arc more easily made in the provincial centres and smaller towns than in the metropolitan areas. The committees got together more easily, and the field of their work is naturally smaller and handier.”

Dr. Watt expressed satisfaction with arrangements in Opotiki.

After his arrival in Gisborne I)r. Watt, in conversation with a pressman, stated that the principal purpose of his four was to discuss with hospital boards and local authorities tho plans for hospital facilities which would have to be established in the event ,of an upheaval or other emergency involving a considerable number of casualties.

The scheme involved a great deal of preparation, and the ordering of special reserves of materials as a precaution against transportation difficulties. Ho had found a general recognition of the necessity for preparedness,- Dr. Watt said, and this had been especially true of the smaller centres;