Contact Artefacts please if you have any comments or more information regarding this record.	Menu Home Upfront Now Up Books Towns Structures People Firms Lexicon		Hospital Potchefstroom, North West STEGMANN, ORPEN and PORTER: Architect

Date: c.1941 Type: Hospital Style: Art Deco - Modern Status: Unknown

[Editors' Note: Racially determined terminology, now no longer acceptable, is from the time and retained for understanding the context of the article.] Design For New European HOSPITAL AT POTCHEFSTROOM A new 80-bed hospital for Europeans is to be erected shortly at Potchefstroon1. The design provides for a four-storey building for which the architects are Messrs. Stegmann, Orpen & Porter. The existing hospital is to be converted into a Native hospital vvith accon1- modation for Indians. A new nurses' hon1e is also to be provided, as well as a con1pound for Natives. Bed accomn1odation in the nevv building is split up into separate units con1prising a male nursing unit, a fen1ale nursing unit, a children's nursing unit and a n1aternity nursing unit. All wards are situated on the north frontage, the main entrance to the building being on the south. Side entrances have been provided for out-patients, visitors, ambulance cases and kitchen and other services. (PWSA November 1947 No 37:8). The floor accommodation provided ts as follows:- GROUND FLOOR: Main entrance, administration department, visitors' entrance, casualty entrance, out-patients' department, kitchen, kitchen and service entrances. FIRST FLOOR: Operation theatre unit, general, observation and private wards for males, with the usual accessory rooms. SECOND FLOOR: General, observation and private wards for females, together with an isolation ward and the usual accessory rooms. THIRD FLOOR: General wards, maternity wards and a maternity delivery suite. Besides these wards each unit has the usual auxiliary rooms such as a linen room, a kit room, ward store, ward kitchen, dressing room, sterilizing room, sluice room, patients' bathroom and lavatory. The operation theatre unit on the first floor comprises two theatres with a common sterilizing room equipped with built-in high-pressure steam sterilizers. Included in this unit are the sisters' duty office, surgeons' sitting-room, surgeon's' and 11urses' change-rooms, surgeons' scrub-up, lavatory accommodation, storeroom, sluice rooms and theatre lobby. Both theatres are provided with artificial ventilation. Internally, the building is to be oil-painted throughout, and cream-glazed tile dadoes will be given to the service rooms. The wards, duty rooms, offices, etc., are to have wood-block floors. Linoleum will be used on the main staircase and in the corridors. External finishes will comprise plaster surfaces with face-brick relief. Adequate provision has heen made for future extensions.