HOSPITAL BOARD

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 April 1941, Page 6

HOSPITAL BOARD

ANNUAL MEETING HELD TODAY ADDITIONAL ACCOMMODATION AT GREYTOWN. PREPARATION OF PLANS. The annual meeting of the Wairarapa 'Hospital Board Avas held in Masterton today. Mr H. H. MaAvley Avas in the chair, and there also Avere present Messrs W. I. Armstrong, A. Clark, W. B. Martin, C. T. Richardson, J. F. Thompson, P. R. Welch, A. Forsberg, F. Court, F. S. H. Bolton, J. A. McLeod, W. Britland, N. T. Beetham, H. Thomas, Mrs J. Robertson, Mrs S. Fletcher, Misses C. McKenny and H. Card.

The question was discussed of preparing plans and raising a loan to finance the building of additional accommodation for patients and nurses at Greytown Hospital. The secretarymanager, Mr Norman Lee, said it was necessary to prepare the plans before application was made to the Local Government Loans Board. ;

Mr J. F. Thompson: “The war will be over by the time we get the plans. What will happen if casualties start coming back and we have no accommodation for them?”

Mr Mawley: ‘The Health Department were eight months in preparing us plans for a little building of five rooms. We told them it was a very urgent matter and the plans turned up eight months later. Getting the plans prepared is by far the longest part of the procedure. We then have to raise the money. Everything is in a fairly critical state at the moment both with regard to the war and the finances of this country. Exports will be going away in very limited quantity and our finances are likely to be soon in a very bad state.”

On the motion of Mr Thompson it was agreed that the board take the necessary steps to build at Greytown a new men's ward at an estimated cost of £B,OOO and that provision be made also for the accommodation of nursing and domestic staff by using pari of the existing Nurses' Home for the domestic stall' and by the erection of a now two-story block of 27 rooms for the nursing staff at an estimated cost of £22,000. The motion was carried lyIt was decided not to take out. a policy of earthquake insurance on the Masterton Hospital. Mi- N. T. Beetham said the hospital had withstood earthquake shocks very well in the past. The buildings were on very sound foundations.