ANOTHER MENTAL HOSPITAL

Southland Times, Issue 23389, 22 December 1937, Page 4

ANOTHER MENTAL HOSPITAL

NEW INSTITUTION IN NORTH ISLAND SUCCESSFUL VILLA SYSTEM TO BE USED (United Press Association) WELLINGTON, December 21. The purchase by the Government from Mr Alexander Stuart, of the Heaton Park estate, between Bulls and Marton for the erection of a new mental hospital was announced by tiie Minister in charge of Mental Hospitals (the Hon. P. Fraser) this evening. This estate is approximately 541 acres in extent and the new institution to be built there will be conducted on the villa system. , . .. . Mr Fraser said the number of patients at Porirua was now much, in excess oi that for which the institution had been designed and the layout of the buildings there was not in harmony with modem requirements. It had become, therefore, an urgent necessity to secure for the Mental Hospitals Department property which would lend itself to the establishment of a villa mental hospital to be conducted on principles which had been so conspicuously successful at Kingseat, Auckland and[at Stoke, in the Nelson district. The Heaton Park estate was just off the Bulls-Turakina road and about five miles from Marton. ' “There is ample room,’ said Mr Fraser, “for the erection of numerous villas which, with laundry, workshops, stores, and other subsidiary buildings, will constitute the new institution, as well as for farming operations which always form an important part of hospital activities. The new institution, which will take several years to complete, is intended to serve the needs of Taranaki, Manawatu, and the northern portion of the Wellington province, and Porirua, which in the meantime will have very considerable structural alterations made, will function as. a metropolitan mental hospital. It is proposed to begin the preliminary , work at Heaton Park early next year.