A HOSPITAL is much more than a building, as retired nurse Michael Oates knows very well, but he's one of many Sunraysia people glad that the architectural gem that is the Old Mildura Base found a new life as the city's most stylish apartment complex.

Mr Oates, now 72, was made a Member of the Order of Australia for his 36 years of service as a psychiatric nurse here, and spent much of his Mildura career crisscrossing the Mallee and Far West N