March 9 2022
Chris Hipkins spoke just before the Ministry of Health announced there were 22,454 community cases and four deaths today. There were 742 people hospitalised including 19 in ICU.
A specialised 32-bed ward for Covid-19 patients has been opened at Palmerston North Hospital, as the Omicron outbreak grows in the Lower North Island.
There are now nearly 25,000 active cases of Covid-19 in the area, including more than 20,000 in the Greater Wellington Region and 4020 in the MidCentral DHB.
Yesterday the Ministry of Health announced 1879 new cases in Capital & Coast DHB, 1062 in the Hutt Valley, 166 in Wairarapa and 655 in MidCentral.
The first of two dedicated Covid wards at Palmerston North hospital has also been opened, MidCentral DHB announced earlier this week.
The DHB's chief executive Kathryn Cook said the ward was one way they were managing an increase in people with Covid-19 requiring hospital care.
"This preparation has included establishing special wards and identifying how we can safely care for people who are Covid-19 positive and in hospital for other reasons," she said.
The recent upgrade to the 32-bed ward made physical changes to the medical gas pipelines and infrastructure, meaning they could care for patients who needed a higher than normal flow of oxygen.
"The ward is also under negative pressure, which keeps the air from inside the ward from reaching patients or staff in other areas of the hospital," she said.
Wellington Regional Hospital. Photo / Mark Mitchell
The ward could also be used to care for patients who were in hospital for other reasons, but had tested positive for Covid-19, she said.
Ward 24 had been re-purposed for Covid after previously being an orthopedic ward, said the DHB.
Orthopaedics had seen a drop in occupancy due to the deferral of non-urgent in-patient elective surgery, allowing the hospital to move Orthopaedic patients elsewhere in the hospital.
The DHB had also begun converting ward 26 into a second Covid-19 ward last year.
Palmerston North was one of the first places in the country to record community spread of the Omicron variant in January, and there are currently 18 people requiring hospital care in the MidCentral DHB region.
There are no plans to establish Covid-dedicated wards in Wellington or Hutt Valley hospitals, but chief executive of the DHBs Fionnagh Dougan said they were confident in their capacity to support Covid and non-Covid patients.
"A key component of our planning involves our facilities and how best they can be utilised both in regards to Covid-19 and our usual hospital operations," she said.
"While we do not have a dedicated Covid-19 ward – or any current plans to establish one – we recognise the constantly evolving nature of the Covid-19 situation and our planning continues to be flexible and adaptable."
Over the past two years they had assessed their facilities and increased the capacity of hospitals in preparation for Covid-19, Dougan said.
This had included converted a six-bed extension into a large negative pressure room at Wellington Hospital, and building two new air locks in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
"Additional surge capacity" had been built into the ICU at Hutt Valley Hospital, and existing spaces had been repurposed to ease pressure on ICU and wards.
They had also made "various improvement and enhancements to our air-handling systems," Dougan said.
There are currently 38 people with Covid-19 in Wellington Hospital and a total of 13,148 active cases in the CCDHB region.
In the Hutt Valley there are 6325 active cases of Covid-19, with 12 hospitalised.
Wellington Regional Hospital is currently operating at around 89 per cent occupancy and Hutt Valley at 73 per cent, said Dougan, although this was not unusual.
"Both hospitals regularly operate at high levels of occupancy – particularly Wellington Regional Hospital, which is the tertiary provider delivering services for the lower North and upper South Islands," she said.
