The first building

The Costley Wards
 
In 1887 seventeen acres were purchased below Maungakiekie (One Tree Hill) for the establishment of a Home for the Aged Poor. This was funded by the Costley Bequest. By 1889 plans were approved and the foundation stone was laid on 25 April 1889 by the Governor, the Earl of Onslow. Almost exactly a year later (24 April 1890) the Earl of Onslow opened the Costley Home for the Aged Poor. There were six wards with accommodation for 178 males and 58 females. When the Home was opened, 148 people were admitted.

Subsequently, a male infirmary was built with 33 beds for chronically ill patients. This old wooden building also remains, and also is currently unused. By 1931 there were 220 patients, including patients with tuberculosis, housed in specially built “consumptive shelters”. This building was still used for the confinement of tubercular patients when I was a student.

In 1924 the name of the hospital was changed to the Auckland Infirmary. And in 1942 it became a general hospital known as Green Lane Hospital. The hospital is on Green Lane West. In 1943 the six-storey main block was built. Ward 1 (on the ground floor) was for children, Ward 2 was for thoracic surgery, general medicine was in ward three and general surgery in wards four and five. The top floor was living quarters for the resident doctors.

Operating theatres were improvised in the Costley Block, and a year later a Casualty Department was also put in the ground floor of the Costley building. The operating theatres were moved to the main block (displacing the children’s ward) in 1950. In 1958 Green Lane Hospital carried out the first heart bypass operation in New Zealand, and became over the years a world leader in cardiac surgery.

By 1962 the only part of the hospital catering for geriatric care was the upper floor of the Costley Building. Most of the elderly patients had been transferred to Cornwall Park Hospital in the years following World War II. The Cornwall Park Hospital was in buildings erected by the US Army during World War II for injured US servicemen and women from the Pacific War. The chest clinic, medical records and autoclave room, as well as the casualty department, were on the ground floor of the Costley block.

That was the situation when I started my medical career, and worked at both Green Lane Hospital and Cornwall Park Hospital. In 1984 a general hospital was opened on the North Shore, and many services in Green Lane were moved there, ending the need for patients to travel across the harbour to access hospital care. In 2003 most major inpatient services were transferred to Auckland Hospital and Green Lane became an outpatient centre.

I was there this afternoon for a meeting (in the 1943 building), and took this photo.