BOPDHB History Whakatāne Hospital History Book | Page 49

The Maternity Annex was completed early in 1927 but there is a noticeable lack of information in the
Board Minutes as to the exact date of its official opening. In March 1927, equipment for the Annex
was still being purchased and a high pressure steriliser for the operating theatre was mentioned at a
cost of £103. Furthermore, in March 1927, the Chairman moved:58
That the first infant born in the Maternity Annex be presented with a silver mug suitably inscribed.
Subsequent minutes contain no record of when or even if the mug was presented.
Sister Lenihan was appointed staff nurse in charge of the Maternity Annex in May 1927 on a salary of
£140 pa, so it is reasonable to assume the building was opened at about that time.
Seven years later a sitting room was built in the Annex with the Women’s Institute raising half the
money and the Department of Health providing the remainder with the usual 1:1 subsidy. Two years
after that, the western end of the Annex verandah was closed in to provide a suitable area for antenatal services and a telephone was added. In 1955 a large additional area of square footage was
added to the Western side of the original Maternity Annex. In 2011 these buildings were occupied
by Te Koru – Rehabilitation and Physiotherapy.

Ko Matariki - Maternity Unit, opened 29 February 2000
This more recent building has its entrance off Stewart Street with links back through the ground floor
of the Dawson Block to the Godfrey Santon Block. This building contains 14 beds, three labour rooms
and a Special Care Baby Unit.

The First Nurses’ Home, opened July 1928, demolished June 2011
As noted earlier, comfortable accommodation in the form of a ‘cosy’ cottage with nine bedrooms was
moved onto the site for the nursing staff. As a separate 1976 report59 notes:
Apart from three old cottages to Stewart Street frontage and a fourth cottage used for Board
offices nothing of consequence has been demolished at the hospital.
It is reasonable to assume that the earliest Nurses’ Homes were removed sometime after 1957 (see
photograph at back) and before 1963 when the Dawson Block was completed. Certainly there is no
evidence that the Homes were still there in 1976 (see Building Survey Plan at back).

Bay of Plenty Hospital and Charitable Aid Board Minutes, Volume 2 [17.09.1917 – 25.03.1938],
24 March 1927, (Auckland, Archives New Zealand, Reference ADHL A1669 22975 7)
59
Haughey, Fox & Partners, Architects & Engineers, Whakatane Hospital Building Survey Report,
March 1976, (Auckland, Archives New Zealand, Reference ADHL A1669 22979 93)
58

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