Flat-stick preparing hospital for pandemic

Having been in the fire service for 28 years, Phil Elworthy is no stranger to emergencies – but the past month he has been dealing with one of a different kind.

As the facilities coordinator at Wairau Hospital, Elworthy and his team have worked almost every weekend since early March to prepare Wairau Hospital for the coronavirus pandemic.

Their job was to construct walls, put divisions in place and create spaces where patients could be isolated.

They received their first task on March 7 and since then it has been ‘‘go, go, go’’.

‘‘It’s been pretty huge, to be honest,’’ Elworthy said.

‘‘We’ve just done what we can to make things work.

‘‘The important thing is that when people come to the hospital, that they’re safe and I think the emergency team here have done a great job at making sure that’s happened.’’

Elworthy, who in theory works part-time at the hospital, wouldn’t admit how many hours he had been working since the pandemic ramped up.

‘‘Like everybody in the country, we didn’t actually know what was going to happen,’’ he said.

So they prepared as best they could.

Elworthy met the clinical team to work out how the hospital needed to adapt.

His team, which included expertise in carpentry, engineering and electrics, came back with designs and plans to set up about eight new isolation spaces.

‘‘When they wanted these things built, we wanted to get it done as quick as we could,’’ he said.

‘‘We wanted to get it done so the hospital was ready if it was to escalate.’’

In the emergency department, for instance, there were rooms where people were brought in by ambulance.

‘‘One of those rooms is earmarked for a potential Covid19 patient. Our job was to separate those spaces so we’ve got a safe place for the patient to be and a safe place for the staff to be as well.’’

Their work had not been accomplished overnight, he said.

‘‘Things have taken days to do, not hours, but they’ve been accommodating. Everyone has been working really well as a hospital.

‘‘It feels good to be a part of such a big thing in a community like Blenheim.’’

As the number of coronavirus cases in New Zealand levelled out, their job continued to evolve, Elworthy said.

‘‘It’s been a pretty awesome effort from everybody... it’s been pretty good that we’ve been able to do it at reasonably short notice.’’