DUNEDIN HOSPITAL.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 289, 14 August 1873, Page 6

DUNEDIN HOSPITAL.

Tbe following is extracted from an article on the above subject in the " G-uardian " :— There are eight wards in the Hospital, containing twenty beds each — a number, however, which might be largely increased, should circumatances so require it. These eight wards, four above and four below, at the corners of a large central hall, which is useless perhaps, as so much space unoccupied, but must be fine for purposes of ventilation. The wards and everything belonging to them were as clean as possible, and as the number of patients is nothing like what they can accommodate; the share allotted to each sufferer must be from 1,400 to 1,600 cubic feet, an advantage which can be better appreciated when we remember that in our military hospitals, 1,200 cubic feet are considered sufficient. I found that on the day I was in the Hospital it contained 146 patients, the daily average is, however, rather less, about 127. Of these very nearly one half come from districts outside Dunedin — several of them from Hospitals outside Dunedin. To provide for the wants of these there is a resident qualified medical officer who dispenses drugs, and tbe constant care and visitation of the Provincial Surgeon. The stores for their use and the kitchen and laundry are all in large airy buildinds at the back of the Hospital. The basis of each patient's food is a plentiful allowance of meat or soup and vegetables with tea and bread, but this is a mere groundwork, being altored to fish and fowl and grilled chops and other comforts, previously supposed by me to be indigenous to hotels, and supplemented by portar, and beer, and wine and spirits, whett- necessary. The kitchen seemed to be as well kept as any other part of the establishment was. In the laundry was a washing machine, the design of an ingenious resident of Dunedin, as good at washing clothes, and permanently removin" all traces of buttons, as such machines generally are. The vegetables for the patients are all furnished by the Hospital grounds, of which there may be some three acres available for such a purpose. Besides the patients in the Hospital, there is an average attendance daily of thirty out patients, whom the doctor sees from nine to ten o'clock in the morning, and from two to three o'clock in the afternoon. Of 644 patients received during the past year, the following were the districts from which they were received : — Dunedin and suburbs, 361; Waikouaiti, 43; Oamaru, 37; Taieri, 41 ; Tuapeka, 15 ; Tokomairiro, 14, Dunstan Hospital, 4; Tuapeka Hospital, 2 ; Benevolent Asylum, 1 ; Mount Ida, 8 ; Clutba, 13 ; Wakatipu, 10 ; Dunstan, 7 : Otago Heads, 5 ; Dunedin Gaol, 6 ; Southland, 4 ; Immigration Barracks, 2 : Seamen and passengers of vessels arriving at Port Chalmers, 81.