Wednesday 23 September 2009
Redevelopment of Rotorua Hospital Starts October 2009
Modern facilities at Rotorua Hospital are now more than images on a drawing board, with long-awaited work to revitalise the hospital’s ageing infrastructure starting in October.
The $89 million Rotorua and Taupo Hospitals redevelopment is the culmination of years of planning after reviews and reports since 2001 identified compelling reasons for Lakes DHB to improve service delivery from reconfigured facilities.
“This is a major undertaking for our organisation, all the more because we will also be continuing to provide health services during the redevelopment years. We are looking forward to the next steps. Modern health care requires modern services, and we’re excited about what this means for the people of the Lakes DHB area,” said Lakes DHB Chief Executive Cathy Cooney.
The “turning of the first sod” ceremony will be held at Rotorua Hospital on Friday 9 October, with the Minister of Health, Hon Tony Ryall attending.
The $83 million Rotorua Hospital redevelopment that starts in October 2009 will see the Emergency Department expanded from 15 cubicles to 32. A long street will connect the existing Clinical Services Building, with the expanded ED, to a new three-level inpatient building that comprises:
• A ground-floor ambulatory centre to house the range of specialist outpatient clinic services, some diagnostic services and treatment services, including chemotherapy and physiotherapy.
• New surgical floor that will eventually house the surgical and orthopaedic units, on the first floor.
• New Intensive Care Unit, Coronary Care Unit, and Medical Units on the top floor.
Once the new inpatient building is up the existing theatre area on the second floor of the Clinical Services Building will be upgraded and extended, with the number of theatres increased from four to five.
Overall the number of beds in Rotorua Hospital will increase from 212 to 217 Rotorua.
Once the Rotorua redevelopment has been completed in 2011, Taupo Hospital will be redeveloped in 2012. The Taupo Hospital redevelopment will focus the areas of Emergency (with the number of ED cubicles doubling from six to 12), Maternity and ATR.
Patients and visitors will notice a number of changes being made in the periold leading up to the start of construction. These include the 1 October 2009 relocation of the existing main hospital and Emergency Department (ED) entrance, which is being moved to the Outpatients Department entrance in Bridgman Building, overlooking Kuirau Park. Parking is being reconfigured to ensure sufficient parking is available for ED. Cathy Cooney says extensive signposting will be provided so that people can easily find their way around the hospital site.
Other changes have already taken place, including the upgrade of the Paimarie whanau accommodation which was officially opened in August.
Mrs Cooney says the project’s redevelopment design focus has been geared around protecting the integrity of the Makawe cultural and historical location, also taking into account some significant geotechnical issues on the site.
Funding for the project was announced in October 2008, following Ministerial approval of a revised Lakes Health Services Improvement Project (LHSIP) business case submitted in May 2008. The first business case was submitted in September 2006 and was accepted, but the DHB later decided it needed to shave $25 million of the cost of the redevelopment, for affordability reasons.
Work on the business cases and financial planning around redevelopment of Rotorua and Taupo Hospitals has been the result of years of work by Board members, management and many staff.
“The LHSIP project team and steering committee members were particularly delighted that the business case received an overall rating of 10/10 for the comprehensiveness of the case and for the ‘value for money’ the redevelopment represents,” said Mrs Cooney.
She said staff, patients and visitors will face adjustment over the next two years to cope with the noise and disruption of the development.
With construction at Rotorua scheduled to finish late in 2011, the hospital will be a major building site for the next two years. Careful and extensive planning has been undertaken to ensure the continuation of clinical services, but patients in some areas may well experience delays, said Mrs Cooney.
“I encourage everyone to recognise that this is a very significant and exciting opportunity to make positive changes that will support improved delivery of health care in our area.”
ends
Key points:
• Construction starts at Rotorua October 2009, due to finish late 2011
• Rotorua development costs $83 million
• Taupo Hospital redevelopment costs $6 million
Sources of Finance
DHB $ 28 million
Property disposals $ 12 million
Loans from Government* $ 49 million
(* Govt. loans will be repaid over a 15 year period) |
