First Gas-Proof Hospital In London

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 17, 21 January 1937, Page 5

First Gas-Proof Hospital In London

London’s first gas-proof hospital, »vhich will embody many new iaeas in structure planning, equipment, jraa service is to be built by the side of St. John’s Garden, in Horsefcrry road, Westminster (says the Daily Telegraph.) The new buildings, which will be on the east, south, and west sides of the garden, will cover an area of 66,000 square feet, and their total cost will be £850,000. Mr Bernard Docker revealed some of the secrets of the new hospital to members of the House, Appeal, and Building Committees, assembled in the bare brick and concrete section of the nurses ’ home which is to be the Junior Nurses’ Common Room. After pointing out that the hospital must remain in a district especially liable to air attack, he added: “We have agreed upon certain plans, after consultation with the Air Raids Precaution Department of the Home Office. At either end of the covered road we shall be able to erect at very short notice double door 3 constituting an airlock within which gas victims can be cleansed from gas contamination and so transferred to the hospital for shelter and treatment. In addition, the roefs of the hospital will be specially strengthened, and its windows will, as far as possible, be arranged to protect the patients from splinters. Further, all rooms below a certain level in each wing wll be suppled with fresh air from an air-conditioning plant. What we are doing in this respect entitles the new ‘Westminster’ to be called ‘the first gas-proof hospital.’ ”