BOPDHB History Tauranga Hospital Centennial Book | Page 35

10

The Hospital’s Changing Face

From Cottage Hospital to leading edge
organisation, Tauranga Hospital has
undergone enormous change since 1914.

1930’s

1914

By 1931, staff numbers had grown to 24 and by the mid1930’s extensions were being made to the Nurses’ Home,
which now provided 20 bedrooms, and to both the Men’s
and Women’s Wards, to provide 16 beds apiece. In the
wake of the 1931 Hawkes Bay earthquake the wards’ walls
were also strengthened with tie rods “to prevent collapse”.

Tauranga Hospital was officially opened on 6 March, 1914,
by Dr T.H.A Valintine. Features of the 250m² E-shaped
building included: a surgery; a matron’s room; a waiting
room; an accident room; a kitchen; two wards (Men’s Ward
housing four patients and Women’s Ward housing two
patients); an acre of grounds; a cow for milk supply, a horse
for the district nurse to use for transport and live-in staff of
four.

Tauranga Hospital. circa, 1933.

Did You Know?
Throughout its early years the hospital maintained a small
farm. Farming operations ceased in July 1935.

An early postcard of Tauranga Hospital published soon after its establishment.

1920’s
Overcrowding was an early issue with patients often
sleeping two in a bed and convalescent patients sleeping
on the floor. In 1921 the Tauranga Hospital Board declared
the old hospital be converted to a Nurses’ Home and “a
modern hospital to accommodate 35 or 40 patients be
built”.
An adjacent four acre parcel of land was purchased for
£2100, a foundation stone laid by the Minister of Health, the
Hon Sir Maui Pomare, on 27 February, 1924 and the new
hospital opened on 22 July, 1925.

Minister of Health, the Hon Sir Maui Pomare, lays the new hospital’s
foundation stone on 27 February, 1924.

“…(it is recommended) that a water trough be provided in
the middle paddock near the Nurses’ Home; that the two
pigs be sent to the bacon factory and that two others be
purchased.”
Tauranga Hospital Board Visiting Committee, November 1927

1940’s
The 12-bed Macmillan Ward - named after the late Hon
Charles Edward de la Barca Macmillan - was opened for
tuberculosis sufferers in 1941.
In August 1943 a £34,500 loan was raised for a new Children’s
Ward, a laundry, adding two new wings to the Nurses’ Home,
and for providing the kitchens with Esse cookers.
An annexe originally built by the Public Works Department for
treating military patients but subsequently deemed surplus
to requirements, became Tauranga’s first Maternity Annexe
(housing 13 patients) when it opened in February 1944.

Staff outside Tauranga Hospital in the mid-1940’s.

29