All systems go as Starship's new operating theatre ready for surgery

Ana-Fusipala Matoto (left) and Xian Li conduct a mock operation in the new operating theatre at Starship hospital. Photo / Chris Gorman

The Starship's long-awaited seventh operating theatre is scheduled to open for surgery today, but the full benefits of the expansion are still six months away.

This is when the overhaul and expansion of the operating theatres suite will be complete at the national children's hospital in Auckland.

The plan is to do spinal surgery in the new theatre three days a week and either orthopaedics or ear, nose and throat surgery for the rest.

"We have identified spinal as being the surgery that demands the most space in terms of equipment used as what we are going to put there initially," said Dr Niall Wilton, Starship's clinical director of anaesthesia and operating rooms.

Herald readers donated $237,203, through the Help Our Kids campaign with the Starship Foundation, for the hospital's operating theatres. The money has gone towards buying high-tech lighting, video, medical scan and computer screens, and a computerised imaging system.

In addition to the newly-built theatre which opens today, four are being upgraded. The project, including improvements to the pre-operative and post-anaesthetic areas, will cost the Auckland District Health Board around $9 million, of which the foundation has pledged to contribute $3.1 million.

Dr Wilton said staff liked the new lighting system that had been installed in operating theatre number one, the smallest, which reopened last month following its upgrade.

However, it hasn't yet been possible to start using this theatre mainly as a room for medical procedures. This is one of the aims of the project and is intended to reduce the delays patients sometimes face when their relatively minor procedures, such as having a catheter installed, are deferred because of more urgent cases taking precedence. This improvement will only be possible once the remaining three theatres have had their makeovers by mid-2015.

Dr Wilton said the new operating theatre provided a much-improved working environment, with better lighting and more space. There would be less need to move surgical sub-specialties between theatres and consequently fewer changes of equipment. All of this should add up to shorter waiting times for patients.