CLEARING HOSPITAL ON AOTEA QUAY

Camp News, Volume 2, Issue 81, 11 July 1941, Page 7

CLEARING HOSPITAL ON AOTEA QUAY

Ready For Occupation PROVISION FOR RETURNING SICK AND WOUNDED With accommodation for 288 patients, the Department of Health’s clearing hospital on Aotea Quay, Wellington, for returning sick and wounded of the armed forces is now officially ready for occupation. It is being staffed by a medical superintendent, Dr. D. Macdonald Wilson, a matron, Miss Moore, of the Health Department, 12 sisters and GO voluntary aides of the Red Cross-Society,' of whom# few are males. It is not intended for continuous occupation by. patiwts, and the length of stay there- is expected to be no more than four or five days. Walking cases will be sent to their homes as soon as possible and others kept there only till they 7 are sent to the hospitals in their own districts. The voluntas y aides have done three months’ training at Wellington Hospital, and those who. undm- Mrs. Marshall McDonald, will do the kitchen and cooking work, and the waiting at tables, have had an institutional cooking course at Wellington Hospital. These voluntary aides will be paid a nominal wage while employed, varying from 1/to 1/6 an hour. Their services will not be required full time, as the hospital will be open only’ at such periods as it is required, namely, after the arrival of sick and wounded. No staff, except a caretaker, will sleep on the premises The sisters are. mostly former nurses who have been temporarily out of their profession owing to marriage or other reasons. Their action in voluntarily resuming has been most helpful. The hospital has taken three and a half months to erect ; 75 per cent, of it is in heart timber. There is a frontage of 600 feet to Aotea Quay, with a cen tral administration block and six wards each to accommodate 48 patients. Three hundred can be taken if necessary Special Railway Platform. There is a special railway platform at the rear of the hospital where pa t i cuts can be removed from or to the railway hospital carriages. The four at present doing service in the North Island are now drawn up at this plat form. Stretcher cases can be taken In this means from the ship’s side to tin hospital. A double door, in each car riage enables stretchers to be wheeled straight over the platform into the hospital. Twenty lying cases can be aceommo dated in each carriage. The Otahuhu Railway Workshops were recently called upon to make two of these, re weekend they got through the ordei well within schedule The carriages quired in It) days, and by working at a

are smartly and conveniently titled. There are also three operating in i lie South Island. Pathways for walking cases and for ambulances are being constructed from the wharf to the. hospital. Simpler Procedure. Returning sick and wounded will be medically boarded and - otherwise attended to at the hospital, obviating the previous arrangement of being interviewed aboard ship, at area 5 headquarters, Buckle Street, and being Xrayed at the public hospital. For the full front of the hospital there is a wide promenade corridor. Here are cubicles for the sick and wounded officers, Placement and Soccial Security Department officers, a Reserve Bank official (to change other currency into New Zealand money), Pensions Department representatives, records and other matters which have; tn be attended to on the arrival of sick and wounded. The wards are finished ii, light green, (he dining-room in cream and 'Other rooms are similarly attract paint ed. There is a fine recreation-room with billiard table, provided by the Y.AI.C.A., gramaphone. imingt chairs and writing tables A imri.o is -x pec ted. There is an X-ray dep.irt mtmi ami a dental surgery with six chairs In the latter returning personnel wit! be dentally examined and then issued with au thorities to have any necessary dental work done at their local demist* Yesterday’ .r large number of voluntary aides were engaged in -icing the interior of the hospital its film. cleaning up. By night it was in spick ai d -pan order, ready to fulfil its purpose