Plans For Swift Change To Rooming-In

Press, Volume C, Issue 29515, 17 May 1961, Page 2

Plans For Swift Change To Rooming-In

Athough present plans for the new block at the St. Helens Hospital provide for the separation of mothers from babies, the building has been designed for speedy conversion, without structural alteration, to roomingin should the Health Department change its mind in the matter. Such a change would involve a reduction of six in the number of beds, two on each 20-bed floor. On present arrangements, the three general maternity •wards on the first, second, and third floors of the new wing each have three fourbed rooms, two two-bed rooms, four single-bed rooms, and two nurseries. On the revised scheme, one four-bed ward would remain for mothers unable to look after their babies, while the other four-bed wards and the two nurseries would each become two-bed and two-cot rooms, and the two-bed wards and single-bed wards would each accommodate a bed and a cot.

The plans for the wing ■were ready several months before tenders were called. The hold-up was caused mainly by a change of plan in the toilet rooms. Instead of each 20-bed floor having two sets of double toiletrooms. as originally intended, the double rooms have been split to give privacy to the mothers. Each toilet room has a shower, handbasin, and lavatory. In addition to the ward floors is the ground floor, containing preparation, firststage, and other rooms; and the delivery section, extending at right-angles to the main part of the building. The delivery section contains five delivery rooms

and an operating theatre intended primarily for caesarean births.

When the new wing is completed, the present operating theatre in the existing building will become a central sterilising unit, where all sterilising work for the whole hospital will be carried out. This is now done in the wards, as in most other hospitals. A feature of the wing will be its fair faced concrete flulsb. The concrete is poured into boxing which is of dressed timber or lined with plywood, and the finished surface, is revealed when th* boxing is taken away.