NEW HOSPITAL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 218, 13 September 1940, Page 8

NEW HOSPITAL.

MATERNITY BLOCK. BUILDING FOR RAETIHI. WANGANUI, this day. A tender lias been accepted for the building of* a new, maternity hospital and nurses' home at Raetihi. An eight-bed maternity block is to'be built, the old hospital remodelled, and new quarters built for the nurses and also for the domestic staff. Planned by the Wanganui Hospital Board's architect, Mr. C. Newton Hood, Wanganui, the new building will be financed by way of loan, provision for which was made in the estimates for the current financial year, a sum of £22,7.10 having been allowed. At the last meeting of the board a letter from the Health Department expressed concern at the likely cost of the new building. It was also pointed out by the architect that tenders were being called on a rising market. However, since the meeting a tender has been accepted. It is six years since the need for an up-to-date maternity hospital at Raetihi was stressed by Mr. J. Morton (Oliakune), Wainiarino representative on the Hospital Board. In 1938 a Government Commission, set up to report on maternity hospital needs in the Dominion, recommended to the Government that two hospitals be built, one at Ohakune and the other at Raetihi. After giving the matter full consideration, the Wanganui Hospital Board decided that Raetihi was the best site for the hospital.