FRIENDS OF ST. GEORGE’S

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28265, 1 May 1957, Page 2

FRIENDS OF ST. GEORGE’S

One hundred copies of the New Testament were among the many gifts given by the Friends of St. George’s Hospital to the hospital, said Mrs Janet Williams, president of the society, at the annual meeting. Mrs Williams reported that the society was now incorporated, with a constitution.

“To help patients who are unable to pay full fees a trust fund in memory of Canon J. R. Wilford has been established,” she said. The Bishop of Christchurch (the Rt. Rev. A. K. Warren), who is warden of the hospital, said that as St. George’s was held in such high esteem, it would be impossible to maintain the position unless the hospital increased simultaneously with the growth of population.

Dr. L. C. L. Averill, chairman, said that in the last 18 years the North Canterbury Hospital Board’s population had increased by 63.921, and that with the Limes Hospital probably closing within two years, private hospital beds would be very short. “Annual donations from doctors, firms, and friends would enable the addition , of more beds, as the St. George’s Hospital Foundation, formed to cancel the debt incurred by the present modernisation programme grows,” said Dr. Averill. “Land from the nurses’ home to Leinster road had been purchased for part of the modernisation programme,” he added.