Seventy-Three Years of Service Auckland’s Historic Hospital

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 418, 28 July 1928, Page 17

Seventy-Three Years of Service Auckland’s Historic Hospital

Written for THE SUN by

I

N setting out to review the life and work of such a huge institution as the Auckland Public Hospital, one is immediately impressed with the fact

that the human body which the institution endeavours to assist and comfort is. in its way, only a little more intricate and delicate in its details than is the hospital itself. Thousands of patients and hundreds 0 f thousands of visitors pass through the portals into the Auckland Hospital every year, and leave again with but a passing thought—possibly that the nurses are jolly good sorts—and perhaps an impression that somewhere in the buildings are housed remarkable instruments and machines for the alleviation of suffering. But it falls to the lot of a few of those thousands to know and realise that below the surface there is a huge sympathy, that here are in operation the results of the labours of the genius; that here reign the spirit of pain, of love, of courage, sometimes of death; above all of Him whose ways are strange to us.

Though the ratepayers may have a yearly cause for heartburn, Auckland possesses a hospital of which ia has much to be proud. Like many another undertaking that has existed through the years it owed its humble start in life to the Military and the Church. It is supposed that the Rev.

Mr. Thatcher, the incumbent of St. Paul’s, designed the first hospital building, and the first superintendent Tas a medical officer attached to one of the regiments situated in Auckland. There are no very clear records of the early days of the institution, which apparently opened its doors in 1845, and is believed to have been the first Public hospital in New Zealand. Some s *y that the records were lost when the vessel “White Swan” was wrecked on her way from Auckland to Wellington. The boat was carrying a great number of papers and other appurtenances belonging to the Government, and these were being shifted with the seat of Parliament. The first definite records in the hands of Dr. Maguire, fhe present superintendent, are dated 1859, and show that most of the Patients were admitted on the recommendation of his Honour, the Superintendent of the Province. In the majority of cases the patients did not pay tees, but where it was thought that the Patient was in a position to pay the charge was at the rate of Is. Gd. a day. In iB6O the total number of patients admitted was 210. Nine years later 6 tota l had jumped to 494. In the Past few years the numbers run into any thousands, and the average aumber of patients in the wards every *y is close on 700. The complaints °f sufferers back in the GO’S were much 'be same as those of the patients |e-day. The most notable difference ■s that the word “appendicitis” never Gated on charts in those far off times, w e to-day the complaint is as common as motor cars. People may av e suffered with appendicitis then,

but it was known by other names, and the treatment was probably quite different. In these enlightened days 90 per cent of appendicitis cases are simplicity itself: the operation can be performed in a few minutes. Auckland, in addition to being a larger city might also be judged a better one in one way, for the records show thai there has been a very distinct falling

off in the number of patients suffering from what is commonly known as “D.T’s.”

In the early days the grounds of the hospital also accommodated the Old People’s Home, and the Mental Hospital, each having been removed as new institutions were erected at Epsom and Avondale. The first of the buildings which comprise the hospital to-day, the main building in white, came into being in 1876. It was modelled on The lines of St. Thomas's Hospital, London. The contract price was £19,249. Apart from the fact that the kitchen facilities are far from being as good as they might be, the building is as useful as it was when built, and its price to-day would probably be much nearer £IOO,OOO. A Windfall In 18P1 there came the most notable bequest of the many that have been received by the hospital. It was unde- the will of Mr. Edward Costley. Auckland is studded with memorials to his generosity. A bachelor, with no known relatives, he left an estate which, after the payment of all dues, was worth £92,000, to be divided between seven institutions. Of this the

hospital secured £13,226, while a similar amount went to the Old People’s Home. The funds were invested for many years, but early in the present century they disappeared and were replaced by the Costley Wards, the Nurses’ Home, and Costley Old People’s Home, permanent memorials to his benificence. Altogether £37,795

has been spent on hospital buildings as the result of this bequest. The Costley wards were erected on the site of the first hospital building, and were the first large extension after the main block. The magnificent Wallace Wards, the Princess Mary W’ards for children, additions to the Nurses' Home, the laundry, and smaller buildings have been added in the past few years. Recent reports have shown that the hospital is grossly overcrowded, and it will he only a matter of a short time when another large block will rear up on the site of the old wooden building immediately inside the main gates. Built in 14 Days

This old building has a remarkable history. Large as it is, it was built

in a hurry. So much so that, where lay empty ground, fourteen days later there was another hospital fully occupied. This feat was performed in 1887, when a typhoid epidemic swept the 1 city. It has ever since been hoped to demolish the building, and it has i been unoccupied for the past two years. But a couple of weeks ago

EARL ROBIESON.

carpenters, plumbers, painters and j their ilk fell upon it and now it is once more doing duty, this time as a general women’s ward. No men will be accomodated here owing to the fire danger. Smokers will smoke whatever the regulations. And, by the way, the regulations recently saw an alteration that was extremely popular. Dr. Maguire dropped a hint, as he went his rounds one morning, that in future smoking would be allowed patients—men and women—for half an hour after each meal. Needless to say the three “smokos” are popular. So from humble beginnings there has developed an organisation that numbers with its patients, its 225 nurses, its 14 medical officers, its specialists, its laboratory attendants, tradesmen, domestics, and general staff, a population of more than 1000

souls. These control buildings, plant and supplies, the value of which is only referred to in tens of thousands. One humble building has grown to 28 wards. No ! 27. There is no No. 13, not in general use as a ward at any rate, though there is a building that is occasionally referred to as “13”. Besides the wards, there are no fewer

than five operating theatres, most of them in use every day but Sundays, when urgent operations only are carried out. A number of other departments include the kitchen, the laundry and the engineering shop, all very large, important, and integral portions of the general scheme. The Hospital's Diet The kitchen, for instance, is becoming rather too small for its job. The housewife will perhaps be interested to know that in the hospital last year, the patients consumed 80,852 pounds of meat. Some of the other contracts were as follow :

These figures are for the hospital alone, and do not include the Nurses’ Home with its permanent population of 225. The hospital authorities work out their cost a head, a day, at meat 3d., fish Id., poultry Id., butter Id., milk and cream 2d., eggs Id., bread Id., fruit Id., vegetables 2d. Unlike the institutions in some smaller places the hospital does not draw anything worth mentioning from kjndred organisations. Napier, for instance, gets a fair supply, at little cost, from its old people’s home gardens, but in Auckland the old people’s home, with some 370 residents of its own, finds it has little surplus. The laundry staff has plenty to do. The hospital owns many thousands of sheets, towels and pillow-slips,—the management has lost count of the total—and the laundry is kept busy attending to these and uniforms and other things that come its way. The engineering department with miles of pipes at its disposal, has, as one of its jobs, the supply to all the buildings of hot water, both in the taps and

through the central heating system. We then come to the X-ray, deep therapy, and radium department—a place of mystery, full of bright metal and dials, now-a-days a department of primary importance in the work of the hospital. The department could easily provide more than sufficient material for a page itself. I will confine myself to remarking that the plant in the main department is worth well over £5,000 and the tubes used to provide the rays from electric current vary in value from £35 to £l9O, any one of which is liable to suffer the fate of an ordinary electric light globe and fuse without a moment’s warning. The £l9O globe is in the deep therapy department, that for treatment of such diseases as cancer. The X-ray plant is one of the finest in the Dominion, and is in constant use. Apart from photography the plant is used a great deal in direct diagnosing, the patient being placed in position, and the required details of the body being shown on a cream coloured glass screen. I inspected the

bones in one of my own bands, and found all the joints nicely cushioned and the whole affair working in an excellent and interesting fashion. The £l9O globe on the therapy machine, by the way, has almost precisely the same water cooling system as a motor car engine.

In this department £5,000 worth of radium is stored. Radium, I learnt, is something like pepper to look at, and is not the sort of stuff that it is advisable to carry in one’s pocket. It is usually kept in a heavily-leaded box, which in turn has a handle some 18 inches long, and the whole affair is carried in much the same manner as a long-dead rodent.

Another important department, more or less attached, is that which deals with deformities, either natural or caused by injury. Twelve masseuses are engaged here and the most modern methods of electricity and whirlpool baths are included in the equipment, as well as artificial sun-bathing. A

considerable measure of success has attended spinal bone grafting operations in Auckland. The object is to strengthen the spine, usually in cases of tuberculosis. The Oldest Inhabitant The only other department of any note is the school. With an average of 120 patients in the children’s wards educational facilities are a necessity, and the Education Board maintains a school and two teachers. It proceeds much the same as any other school, not forgetting, even, an annual visit from an inspector. One small child has the record for a long attendance, as she also holds the honour of being the oldest inhabitant. She is the last remaining of the infantile paralysis cases, and has spent nearly all her life in the hospital. She entered about the age of two, and is now ten. For long years she was very much a cripple, but she has since reached the runningabout stage. Philanthropy Perhaps one of the facts that is | least realised is that though there are fourteen residential medical offi- | cers, of whom four are women doctors, there are also some thirty-six Auckland doctors who form the honorary medical staff. These visiting medical officers have either whole or portions of wards alloted to them, and they give their services gratuitously for the sick and poor. The general public possibly gives very little thought to the enormous amount of service that the i honorary staff in a huge hospital

like this gives to the community. The idea in having an honorary medical staff is to have men of the highest experience and qualification connected with the hospital. Some of them give up a very considerable amount of time every week, and in addition lecture the younger medicos and demonstrate.

Dr. C. K. Maguire, M.D., has been the superintendent of the Auckland hospital for 18 years now, and no one would question his popularity. His most notable predecessor was Thomas Moore Philson, M.D., who for more than forty years, as provincial and honorary consulting surgeon to the hospital, was an outstanding aud loved figure. It is recorded of him that he isolated himself with a small pox patient in order to prevent the spread of the disease.

And finally a hospital might be a hospital, but it would not be one without nurses, and there is difficulty in paying them just the tribute that they deserve. Most people admit quite

candidly that they wouldn’t be a nurse for that vague reward —all the tea in China, but fortunately no two people

think exactly alike, and nursing apparently has its own facination. Few institutions are graced by a better staff than that controlled by Miss A. Taylor, lady superintendent of the nursing staff, generally referred to as “matron.” The nurse’s life is by no means an easy one. The girls in the Auckland hospital work in three shifts, each doing eight hours daily on duty, and having a full day off in every week, the local hospital being the first to introduce this innovation. ! The ordinary patient barely gets the chance to appreciate to the full | the services of his nurses. He or she is a straight-forwafd case—in hospital one week, and gone the next, and the impression gained of the nurse | is that she is an efficient young per- ! son, who can be nice and pleasant if the patient behaves properly, and de- ! eidedly the other way if the patient does not —which is not very frequently. It is in the case of major illnesses and of death, however, that the patient and the family learn an enduring respect for and appreciation of the nurse. If the reader has been a patient at Auckland he or she will know all this. If not, he or she may feel confident that in time of illness and trouble there is available a fine institution, * home in which few are strangers for more than a few hours.

Pish 51,870 pounds. Poultry 14,275 birds. Butter 20,888 pounds. Milk-cream 42,580 gallons. Eggs 13,452 dozen. Bread 80,095 loaves. Flour 10,500 pounds.