PALMERSTON HOSPITAL

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20102, 23 November 1939, Page 4

PALMERSTON HOSPITAL

TAXED TO CAPACITY

LONG DELAYS PREDICTED

That non-urgent cases would have to wait for admission to hospital, possibly for three months, was predicted by Mr, J. H. North, medical superintendent, at a meeting of the Palmerston North Hospital Board. “The hospital has been working again to full capacity during the past month. It is still necessary to have a large waiting list for non-urgent cases,’’ said Mr. North. “All departments of the hospital feel the effect of a high in-patient figure during the past few months. There is little prospect this year of an improvement in the bed accommodation problem over the summer months. It is essential that the main hospital building programme should be proceeded with as expeditiously as possible. The war does not alter the position regarding the urgency of our building requirements.”

The chairman, Mr. J. A. Nash: There is great difficulty concerning the materials for the work on the building of the isolation ward and nurses’ home to which Mr. North refers. How are we going to get it? Even this morning you have heard a list of the tilings we have to get for the emergency hospital building. I am not speaking against the request he is making. Mr. North said he was doing the best he could with the bed accommodation available, and getting steadily behind hand. With the influx of military camps the position was becoming really difficult. Dr. M. FI. Watt, Director-General of Health, had told Him. to go ahead with any building programme. He did not know where the materials were to come from. There would be more and more difficulty about admitting patients to the hospital during the coming months. Some patients would have to wait two or three months for an operation. During the next two or three months there would be an almost complete block imposed on non-urgent bases. It was resolved that the chairman, managing-secretary, architect if necessary, and medical superintendent, interview Dr. Shore, of the Health Department, xo see what relief could be obtained, particularly in reference to the isolation block.