HOTEL HOSPITAL

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21198, 22 August 1940, Page 11

HOTEL HOSPITAL

NEW ZEALAND SOLDIERS ESTABLISHMENT IN EGYPT EVERY CARE FOR PATIENTS On July 31 the first New Zealand ambulance of a long convoy pulled up opposite what till recently had been the leading hotel of the thermal town of Helwan. Today it is New Zealand’s first stationary hospital in Egypt. Helwan is a small but attractive township about fifteen kilometres north of Maadi. From Maadi where our troops are camped. Helwan is accessible either by a level bitumen road or by train. For many years it was a tourist attraction on account of the sulphur springs which well up in the centre of the town. People came from all parts to bathe their rheumaticky joints or to dispel from their bodies ills which were likely to be relieved under the influence of those hot sulphur springs. Latterly, however, the tourist trade had languished and the great and imposing hotel had been empty for some years. Scene Changed When the New Zealand doctors first visited it they saw long corridors and large halls and rooms coated with the inevitable dust; the ceilings and walls were discoloured, the : lighting and plumbing were hardly effective. It was, indeed, a depressing spectacle. Today the scene has changed. A modern hospital has emerged where the patients may receive the most skilled attention under the most j favourable conditions. The hospital, called the No. 4 New 1 Zealand General Hospital, stands on a large square block of land. One enters from the street up a flight of ; marble steps and walks along a broad terrace to the building. At present this terrace stretches right across the main entrance, probably 40 feet in width. Soon, however, two additional wards will be erected on either side of the terrace. On the left side there is a gently rising ramp leading into the building past the ward master’s room to the patients’ reception room. Let us, however, enter by the great

porch way. One is struck at once by the high stud of the hallway dome. On the right is the matron’s room, with the assistant’s next door, and immediately past is a short passage leading past the registrar’s room to the commanding officer’s room. Administrative Rooms On the left side of the hall there are the reception, examination and office rooms. Walking along the hall we come to the cross passages with the great dining hall immediately in front. A new lift is being installed at the crossways large enough to take a stretcher case. Down the corridor on the left are a series of rooms converted into bedrooms for patients classified as medical cases in contrast with surgical cases. At the end of this corridor there is another long corridor running back towards the street where there is a further series of bedrooms also set aside for medical cases. A special cookery service is established in this part of the hospital just as is one for the surgical ward which lies on the opposite side of the hotel. The rooms in the j surgical division are much the same as those set aside for the medical cases. One of the most imposing features of the building is the general dining room, which it is estimated could seat at one sitting as many as three hundred patients. The hospital itself will take six hundred patients, half of which it is estimated will not be confined to their beds. It is a square hall, well lit, and out of the windows can be seen the tall tropical trees in the gardens. Scene From the Roof The roof of this building is flat and easily accessible for the use of patj ients. From the roof a glorious I panorama presents itself. Beyond the ! walls of the town the distant Nile ! running south to north can be seen • with the deep green band of vegeta- ■ tion on both its banks. Beyond may • be seen the arid desert framed by a '-steep and bare range of hills which seem almost to surround the town. Gazing down on the township below . are huge cactus plants lifting their prickly spars towards the heavens. The date palms rise to incredible heights and the large bunches of fruit are rapidly ripening as I write. ! The hospital is now housing about j two hundred New Zealand soldiers, ! who, in the great convoy, were con- ! veyed from a British General Mili- ' tary Hospital in another part of Egypt. The whole of the staff of No. ; 4 New Zealand Hospital are New | Zealanders.