AN ACT TO PROVIDE FOR THE CONSTRUCTION, EQUIPPING, AND FURNISHING OF SEVERAL NEW BUILDINGS FOR PATIENTS, A NEW KITCHEN AND DINING ROOM FOR EMPLOYEES, TWO DOCTORS' RESIDENCES AND SIX EMPLOYEES' APARTMENTS, AND A RECEIVING AND WAREHOUSE BUILDING, AND FOR THE ADDITIONAL REPAIRING, REMODELING, AND EQUIPPING OF TWO EXISTING BUILDINGS, AND THE ENLARGING OF ONE EXISTING BUILDING AT THE STATE HOSPITAL AT FARNHURST AND MAKING AN APPROPRIATION THEREFOR.
WHEREAS, the Delaware State Hospital now has a normal bed capacity for one thousand one hundred and twenty-one (1,121) patients; and
WHEREAS, the Delaware State Hospital at the present time has a daily average patient population of one thousand four hundred and twenty-five (1,425) ; and
WHEREAS, the Delaware State Hospital has been and still is desperately in need of additional buildings to adequately house the patients ; and
WHEREAS, the failure to meet these critical needs, at this time, will not only set us back in the treatment and care of our patients, but will destroy the foundation of the scientific achievement in the care and treatment of our mentally ill patients, for which the State of Delaware has been the envy of many states; and
WHEREAS, the mental and emotional stability of our people should be considered as one of the most important factors in our ability to maintain our determination, our hope and devotion to our principles and create all the necessary drives for the endurance and the preservation of our courage in the presence of danger ; and
WHEREAS, the supplies of all the departments of the hospital are now being received at many separate points and stored in any and all available basement space, leading to a time-consuming and almost impossible control; and
WHEREAS, a central Receiving and Warehouse Building, where all materials, food products, and supplies will be received, stored, and issued in an orderly manner, would result in a conservation of time using present manpower and a more efficient use of commodities and materials ; and
WHEREAS, all available residences for staff physicians and married couples, both of whom work for the hospital, are being utilized, additional doctors' residences and employees' apartments will allow us to employ doctors and married couples needed on our staff ; and
WHEREAS, the present dining room for our employees was constructed to accommodate a maximum of two hundred (200) persons and our present staff totals over five hundred (500) making our facilities over-crowded and undesirable ; and
WHEREAS, the present main building needs to be completely repaired and remodeled to be used as a receiving ward and a medical surgical ward for a total of eighty-nine (89) patients ; and
WHEREAS, the 1951 appropriation has proved only sufficient for the repair of the South Wing of the Annex Building, leaving the North Wing in its existing unusable condition ; and
WHEREAS, the present office facilities of the Medical Staff, Records and Business Administration are overcrowded and additional office space is required, NOW, THEREFORE,
Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Delaware:
Section 1. Within the appropriation under Section 2 of this Act the State Board of Trustees of the Delaware State Hospital at Farnhurst is hereby authorized, empowered and directed to construct a reeducational building for one hundred and five (105) female patients, a continuous treatment build-
ing for seventy (70) male patients, a receiving and warehouse building, two doctors' residences and six employees' apartments, a new kitchen and dining room for employees; to complete the remodeling and repairing of the main building and the North Wing of the Annex Building; additional wing to the main building for office space.
Section 2. There is hereby appropriated to the State Board of Trustees of the Delaware State Hospital at Farnhurst the sum of One Million Six Hundred and Sixty-five Thousand Dollars ($1,665,000.00), or so much thereof as may be necessary to carry out the provisions of this Act.
Section 3. This Act is a supplementary appropriation and the money appropriated shall be paid by the State Treasurer out of money received by the sale of bonds authorized under a separate Act of the 118th General Assembly. No portion of the money appropriated as aforesaid shall be deemed or held to revert at the end of any fiscal year, but the said appropriation shall remain available until the objects and purposes of this Act have been fully accomplished.