Medical center here gets face-lifting

              New Orleans has long been famed as a medical center.
Patients from over the world come here.
Each year the numbers increase. And 1960 will be another big year.
Each year local hospitals are faced with the need for additional facilities.
Notable has been the growth of the medical schools attached to Tulane and Louisiana State universities; of tM dental school attached to Loyola university. Here again there is need for more facilities.
To keep pace vast rebuilding programs are being launched. Some are under way, some completed and some on the drawing boards. They will cost millions of dollars.
There i§ a far cry from 1736 when the first great healing institution threw open its doors here. A forerunner of the present Charity hospital, this institution was founded by a sailor named Jean Louis. It had only a handful of beds.
Hotel Dieu
But wf don't have to go back that far. The other day a physician who lived in New Orleans about 20 years ago returned to the city for a visit. He was amazed at the changes in Charity hospital.
One of the most ambitious 61 the expansion programs is that being undertaken by Hotel Dieu. This project, which will cost $4,-500,000 calls for the construction of a seven-story building to house 200 additional beds and service facilities and complete renovation of the Tulane Avenue Dibert Memorial wing.
In the new building there wil] be a definite departure from conventional hospital planning. Operating rooms will be circular and many innovations will be made with an eye toward the patient's comfort. These include individual room control of heating and cooling, chilled water piped into each roon), pipsd music, a convalescent area where patients will be permitted to sleep late, a wider variety of food and meals in the company with other patients when desired.
Touro Iniirmary
During 1959, Touro infirmary embarked on a $4 million expansion program. The first phase of this project — construction of a four-story research and service building — should be completed around February. It will house the now scattered laboratories of the infirmary.
The year also saw the completion^ of intensive renovation and modernization of the older buildings at Touro, The next project calls for the erection of a seven-story medical-surgical wing. This will increase Touro's bed capacity to nearly 600 beds, which will make it the largest private teaching and research hospital in the Deep S6uth.
Sara Mayo
July has been set as the date for completion of a new wing to the Sara Mayo hospital. A three-story addition, the wing will provide beds for 52 paitents in private arid semi-private rooms and in four-bed wards. When complete the  wing  will   give   Sara Mayo
100  adult  beds  in  all,   plus 36 nursery bassinets.
The wing, to be constructed at a cost of 1925,000, will occupy 24,-000 square feet of space. Features will include two major operating rooms, facilities for oxygen distribution and storage, additional administrative offices and clinical and pathological laboratories.
Ochsner
A new research building was dedicated at Ochsner Foundation hospital The building, with equipment costing about $1,500,-000, looks like a massive pillbox. It is made of reinforced concrete, is two-stories and has small windows.
The new structure will house the endocrine laboratory and the chemical laboratory.
In June construction started on two additional floors for Ochsner Foundation hospital. Costing about $1,600,000 the two floors are added to the five-story structure. This will increase the capacity by 136 beds, making 386 beds in all.
Addition of the two floors will mean a notable increase in private room accommodations.
Baptist
At Baptist hospital renovations included complete air-conditioning of all buildings, remodeling of the main kitchen and additions to the engineering and maintenance departments. Total cost was about $250,000.
A solid white brick pillbox, which will house a $2 million-volt X-ray machine is under construe-tion on the front lawn of Charity hospital.   .
The new structure, which measures 81 by 41 feet, has walls about thre^ feet thick and protrudes only six feet above the ground. The floor level of the pillbox is on a level with the.hospital basement.
Charity
Inside the structure will be a $68,000 generator, donated to the hospital by the Danner Foundation of Philadelphia. With the aid of the new machine, about 30 per cent of the more than 1000 patients, now being treated at Charity for cancer, can be helped.
The megavoltage radiation therapy center will also contain two treatment rooms, two examination rooms, a dozen dressing rooms, two waiting rooms, a plan-jning room.
I The expansion agenda at Charity also calls for construction of a multi-story warehouse on Perdido and   Freret   streets.     The   new
Mercy
During 1959, a variety of much-needed facilities were completed at Mercy hospital.
Following construction of the Intern - Extern building which was finished during 1958, there was more room in the main building to house new facilities, costing in the neighborhood of $60,000.
The facilities included a neurological disease diagnostic unit, established with equipment especially designed for neurological diagnostic procedures, and new equipment in the X-ray department to facilitate the performance of highly specialized procedures.
Preparations are under way for completely air-conditioning the school of nursing at Mercy.
A 96-bed addition to Flint-Good-fidge hospital is now under construction.
The addition, to be ready in summer of 1960, is being erected at a cost of $1,132,350. It will be four stories high and will be attached to the present hospital. The first floor will be used for service departments and a kitchen. The remaining three floors will be devoted to patients. Each of the upper floors will have 32 rooms and the entire brick structure will be air-conditioned.
The new addition will provide 96 additional beds to a hospital where lack of needed space is proving an increasing problem.
Turning to the medical school