D.— lA

16

Health Department. Seventeen buildings were erected between 1923 and 1928, at a total cost of £80,950. Plans liave been prepared for a large maternity hospital and nurses' home at Christchurch, but the job has not yet been commenced. This will cost between £40,000 and £50,000. At Hanmer Springs a hospital for women was erected at a cost of £25,000, and a nurses' home to accommodate sixty nurses is in course of erection. Other buildings and extensions of buildings have been completed at the various sanatoria and other institutions under the direct control of the Health Department. Hospital Boards. During the period 1925-28 thirty buildings were erected at a cost of £180,350. Plans, &c., were prepared for five buildings which were not erected, on account of temporary financial stringency. The figures include several large additions to existing hospitals, in the nature of new wards, operating, kitchen, and laundry blocks, &c., and new nurses' homes. Very extensive works were recently carried out at Wellington Hospital to provide a new boiler and machinery block, kitchen block, and laundry block to serve the whole of the institution. At Napier new buildings, costing well over £20,000, have been provided during the last couple of years, and the new Fallen Soldiers Memorial Hospital, Hastings, provided by public subscription, was completed this year at a cost of £21,000. Other extensive works have been spread over the country from Auckland to Southland. It is to be noted that, while Hospital Boards have the option of engaging private practitioners, most of the Boards have elected to make use of the Public Works organization, and the results have proved very satisfactory. Internal Apeatrs. Eleven buildings of a varied nature, and costing approximately £20,300, were erected during the period. Mental Hospitals Department. Seventy-one new buildings have been erected. The majority of these are in the nature of new blocks for existing institutions ; others form the nucleus of new institutions. The total expenditure was approximately £400,400. Thirty-seven of the seventy-one buildings were erected during the last three years. Two jobs cost over £30,000 each, and another one £20,000. The great majority of the buildings cost less than £10,000 apiece, the modern trend being towards detached units in which varying types of patients can be segregated and treated according to the nature of the complaint. This system is also more hygienic, and is a great advance on the old system of herding large numbers of patients in large buildings. A " villa," as the new buildings are called, houses from thirty to forty patients, and each " villa "is given a name. Every possible consideration is given to aspect and prospect, and the surroundings made as bright and cheerful as possible. Native Schools. Thirty new buildings have been erected at a cost of £41,150, seventeen of them since 1926. It will be noticed that the average cost of the buildings is under £1,400, and every effort has been made to provide the small schools required in the scattered districts. Police-stations. Forty-five new buildings have been erected, at a cost of £96,600. The largest number erected in any one year was ten in 1924. No large buildings have been erected, the whole of the forty-five jobs being in the nature of residences and small offices. Post-offices and Telephone Exchanges. One hundred and forty-nine buildings have been erected since 1920, a yearly average of more than sixteen buildings. The total expenditure was £574,620. These figures include several additions to existing post-offices ranging in cost from £5,000 to £22,000,