Acute care for hospital
Palmerston north Hospital needs huge investment in its buildings and physical networks to raise it above its poor and very poor ratings.
Its operating theatres, intensive care and in-patient units all scored ‘‘poor’’ in the recently released National Assetmanagement Programme for district health boards.
Aspects of its fire and mechanical systems rated ‘‘very poor’’ and there were problems with water, electrical and medical gas storage systems.
Midcentral District Health Board chief executive Kathryn Cook said the shortcomings did not come as a shock, and plans for upgrades were beingmade as quickly as possible.
The ultimate fix for acute services would be a completely new building, estimated to cost about $379 million. But the building would be at least seven years away.
In the meantime the board had two major projects nearing readiness.
One was the adult in-patient mental health unit, worth about $30m, which had been approved by the Government’s capital investment committee and was waiting for ministerial sign-off. Once that was secured, construction could begin in mid2021, with commissioning a year later.
The other project was the surgical procedural interventional recovery expansion (Spire). Its cost had been updated to $27.5m.
It was an interim solution to several problems, including Midcentral’s second-lowest theatre capacity in the country.
The project included two extra operating theatres, procedure rooms and recovery rooms.
A catheterisation lab would enable cardiac interventions, but not heart surgery, to be offered. Thatwould help overcome Midcentral Health’s high mortality rate for patients with cardiac conditions. Other facilities would be included to cope with the expected increase in colonoscopies as bowel cancer screening ramps up.
Preparations were already under way to shift some hospital facilities, such as the lecture theatre and clinical library, to create space for the development.
Renal dialysis rooms would move to the Star block.
Building the Spire project was likely to begin by November this year, with the perioperative suite and theatres ready for use by December next year.
The cardiac catheterization laboratory was expected to be finished by mid-2022.
Cook said planning work on the building projects had continued unimpeded during the Covid-19 restrictions, carried out by staff teams not involved in making sure the hospital remained ready for any resurgence of the virus.
In another interim solution, the board was planning to spend $3m on two temporary buildings to extend the capacity of the emergency department, which would also ease pressure on wards.
Those portable buildings or pods would be in place in time for winter next year.
The board had started work improving other systems identified as poor or very poor in the report. Work on a new $10m electrical substation and an electrical upgrade through the hospital had sped up during the Covid-19 restrictions, and would deal with ‘‘some, but not all’’ of the issues in the audit.
Another urgent issue would be dealing with water supply.
The audit report found major structural problems with the water tower, which left the site without water storage.
Cook said solutions such as a ‘‘water farm’’ or collection of onsite water tanks were being considered.
The boiler house was in good to average condition, but there remained a risk the boiler chimney could collapse on to other buildings in an earthquake.
Midcentral District Health Board chief executive Kathryn Cook said the shortcomings did not come as a shock.