Supplies in quake-prone building

Wellington Hospital’s medical supplies store could be useless after even a moderate earthquake.

This comes after revelations the Newtown hospital’s backup generators are regularly failing tests and haven’t had major overhauls since the 1990s, as well as news the hospital reservoir is nearing the end of its lifespan.

A 2012 structural assessment shows the Kenepuru storeroom in Porirua sits at between 9 and 16 per cent of new building standards, though unofficial estimates have put it at up to 43 per cent.

Six years on, and after giving a 12-month timeframe to get out of the quake-prone building, the health board plans to be in a safer site come December.

‘‘It is unlikely in the event of a moderate to large earthquake that the stores building would be able to provide any support to other CCDHB areas,’’ read an email response to the health board, released under the Official Information Act, in 2012.

Corporate services general manager Thomas Davis said the building stored medical equipment including syringes, disposable scissors, bandages and paper measuring tapes.

He said the Kenepuru building could be as high as 32 to 43 per cent of new building standard.

The supplied documents show the 9 to 16 per cent came from a ‘‘conservative’’ estimate taken largely because no original plans could be found for the 19402, three-storey building.

An email to the health board said six workers in the building were at a greater risk from tumbling racks than from the building. They should be able to evacuate after a big shake even though the building would be ‘‘irreparably damaged’’.

That 2012 email gave the building a working life of less than two years. There had been a plan to to have a national supplier for health boards that would have meant a store building was not needed, Davis said, but this did not eventuate.

A report to the board in June 2018 reiterated the Kenepuru building was ‘‘well under code and replacement is urgently required’’ and made a case to move the stores to a Mein St building, which needed ‘‘extensive remodelling’’.