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Unfortunately a site for the proposed Southern Convalescent Hospital has not yet
been secured. A great number of sites have been considered and inspected-one actually
adopted, but disapproved by the Local Government Board but the difficulties of finding a
suitable site for this purpose seem even greater than those which surrounded the search for
the acute hospital sites.
Surely the work of extension already effected is no mean performance when the great
difficulties of acquiring sites are considered—the scarcity of adequate areas, the intense local
opposition, and other circumstances.
But this is not all. The Managers have also, during the same period, been actively
pushing on with most important and much-needed alterations, additions, and improvements
in their existing hospitals.
At the Western Hospital they have twice purchased adjoining property, after most
difficult negotiations, to an extent which more than doubles the original area, for
the purpose of extending the hospital accommodation, and they have already partly
covered the added area with new permanent brick scarlet fever and diphtheria
blocks. They have also entirely rebuilt the laundry on a much larger scale,
and have largely added to the original nurses' accommodation and other administrative
buildings.
At the North-Western Hospital, previously consisting of wooden or corrugated iron
buildings of a "temporary" character, an entirely new administrative block has
been built and occupied, and about one-half of the old hospital wards have been
pulled down and replaced by permanent brick structures.
At the Eastern Hospital temporary wards have been replaced by permanent, and a new
store, new staff blocks, and other administrative buildings to a considerable extent
have been provided.
At the South-Eastern Hospital the old temporary laundries have been replaced by new
permanent laundries, and an entirely new nurses' home has been built, and new
permanent wards are now in course of erection.
At the South-Western Hospital extensive alterations, chiefly in the administrative
buildings, have been, and are being, carried out.