NEW HOSPITAL

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 43, 14 November 1940, Page 6

NEW HOSPITAL

Large Buildings For

Hutt Valley

COST OVER £250,000

Expected To Be Finished By Middle Of Next Year

.Expected to cost more than a quarter of a million pounds, the new Hutt Valley Hospital, on which work has been begun, is expected to be finished before the middle of next year. It will accommodate 210 patients, with provision for expansion to take 360 patients.

The estimated cost is slated to be approximately £260,000. Ibis estimate. however, was for 150 beds, and it

has since been decided to build an extra story on each of the patients wings, increasing the number of beds by 60. The estimate does not include the cost of furniture and moveable equipment. The work is being undertaken, by special permission of the Government, on a non-contract basis, to expedite its completion. It lias been declared an emergency job. and shortly a large gang of men will be working long hours on it.

Work on rhe nurses’ home section is well advanced and the main block is being begun. The general contractors for the buildings are the Fletcher Construction Co.. Ltd., and the architects are Messrs. Crichton. McKay and Haughton (Haughton ami McKeon), Wellington. Spacious Site. The buildings, comprising a main hospital and services block and a nurses’ home block, will stand on a site of approximately 13 acres off High Street, Lower Hutt, from which the main approach will lead. The service entrance will be from Pilmuir Street. The buildings will stand well back witbin the grounds, away from the roar of traffic. Large as are the buildings, the site will provide ample room for expansion, and for pleasant gardens and lawns. The main building, ultimately, will comprise four ward wings and a. service wing radiating from a central block; but in its present form it will comprise only two ward wings and the service wing and central block. Three stories high, built of reinforced concrete, the hospital will be of modern earthquake resisting design and construction. Each wing will be separated from the central block by seismic breaks running the full height of the building, enabling each wing to oscillate separately, thus avoiding the inevitable strain, torsion and shock to a large building bound together as a single solid unit. ' Layout of Main Building. The central block will contain a certain amount of ward accommodation, administrative offices, public waiting rooms, and quarters of the resident medical officers. Flanking this central block on either side, and running forward at an oblique angle, will be a ward wing, three stories high. The wards are planned in 30-bed units, with six singlebed wards, in each unit. To the rear of the central block will be a service wing. On the ground floor it will contain the main kitchen, stores section, refrigerated store, nurses’, doctors’, and staff dining-rooms. On the first floor will be two operating theatres with. sterilizing room, plaster room, and space for two further operating rooms and sterilizing room when required. The remainder of the space will be devoted to the ancillary rooms of the operating suite, consisting of nurses’ work room, anaesthetizing rooms, recovery rooms, portable Xray unit, nurses’ and doctors' changing rooms, and so forth. The buildings will be furnished with modern materials, economical but dur able and chosen to minimize the cost of maintenance. Equipment, will be in accordance with the most modern and efficient hospital usage. Power, light, radiation, hot water services, cooking and sterilizing will be by electricity. Power will be led to a transformer station within the grounds, and will be reticulated to the various buildings. The Nurses’ Home.

Standing apart from the main building. the nurses’ home will also be of reinforced concrete, two stories high, but rising to three stories in the central block. It also comprises two wings obliquely flanking a central block. It will accommqjlate 100 nurses, including matron and senior sisters. The whole of the second floor of the central wing is to be given over to a preliminary training school. In addition to bedrooms, sitting rooms for nurses ami sisters, laundry, drying rooms, sewing and ironing rooms, the building will include sun rooms at the extremities of each wing, studies and library.

The building will look out. over the borough reserve.