This Day in History
This Day in History (1977): Work progresses at al-Hasa clinic
Designed to accommodate 100,000 patient visits a year, the clinic will look, from an aerial view, like a wheel.
From the March 31, 1977, edition of The Arabian Sun
Construction is now under way near Hofuf on the al-Hasa outpatient clinic and adjoining staff compound, a modern facility that may well become the prototype for clinics in other outlying areas.
Designed to accommodate 100,000 patient visits a year, the clinic will look, from an aerial view, like a wheel, with self-contained medical units radiating off a central reception area. While individual waiting areas will be kept small, this design will facilitate the handling of a very large overall traffic lfow.
The planned interior design will incorporate such features as clerestory windows to light interior areas, multistory rooms to give a feeling of spaciousness and color-coded hallways to guide patients to designated medical areas.
The clinic will include doctor's offices, examining rooms and associated laboratories, X-ray rooms, administration offices, and storage areas.
Housing and recreational facilities for the clinic staff will be situated in a separate section of the five-acre tract, which is about 10 kilometers from Hofuf.
Work on the clinic is expected to be complete by September 1978.
Caption for top photo: the central reception area of the future al-Hasa clinic, center, begins to take shape. On the second floor, above the reception area, will be a modern equipment room. Distant columns, at far right, are the beginning of the family and bachelor housing for the clinic staff.
Also on this date
2017 — SpaceX conducts the world's first reflight of an orbital class rocket
2002 — Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother of the United Kingdom dies at 101 in Windsor
1981— U.S. president Ronald Reagan is shot outside a Washington, D.C. hotel by John Hinckley, Jr., but survives the assassination attempt
1979 — Norah Jones, daughter of Ravi Shankar and American singer-songwriter and pianist, is born in Manhattan
1961 — The single Convention on Narcotic Drugs is signed in New York
1939 — The German-built Heinkel He 100 fighter sets a world airspeed record of 463 mph (745 km/h)
1900 — Archaeologists in Knossos, Crete, discover the first clay tablet with hieroglyphic writing in a script later called Linear B
1870 — Texas is readmitted to the U.S. Congress after Reconstruction
1867 — Alaska is purchased from Russia for $7.2 million, about two cents/acre by U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward
1856 — The Treaty of Paris is signed, ending the Crimean War
1842 — Ether anesthesia is used for the first time, in an operation by American surgeon Dr. Crawford Long
