Tauranga Hospital has unveiled plans for its new combined intensive care (ICU) and coronary care unit. The new facility will share the first floor of the hospital's new $25 million east wing building, which is scheduled for completion by April 2011. The new combined unit will include 20 beds - double the current capacity. The five-storey building will also include a day procedures suite. Jeff Hodson, the hospital's general manager of property services, said the remaining levels of the building would be fitted out "according to need and resources". However, the project was still waiting to have government funding allocated to it. "The DHB understands that the National Capital Committee met during August to consider the East Wing Business Case, along with a number of other proposals from other DHBs. The process is then that the National Capital Committee makes a recommendation on which projects should be funded to the Minister for his consideration and decision. We are waiting to hear the outcome of this," Mr Hodson said.
Although still waiting to hear from the Health Ministry, the
district health board hoped to start the east wing project in
November. The board was still evaluating options for use of the old east wing, which currently housed a medical ward on one floor, and office space for medical staff and patient clinics on two other levels. The current ICU and coronary care unit are adjacent to each other on the fourth floor of the hospital's main block. All the space currently taken by those two facilities will be refurbished to become the hospital's new paediatrics ward. The new east wing is the last stage in Project Leo, the hospital's building expansion project launched in 2004. So far the project has seen the refurbishment of the existing west wing, and the opening of a new north wing, including new operating theatres, wards, the atrium and the hospital entrance. Mr Hodson said Project Leo, which had a budget of $140 million, was proceeding on budget and on schedule.
