Upgrade details revealed

By JOHN MASLIN John.maslin@wanganuichronicle.co.nz
It was the big reveal of the $33.4 million upgrade of Wanganui Hospital last night but a disappointingly small number of local people bothered to make the effort to witness the event.
In fact, the crowd numbered just 34 and four of those were representing the Whanganui District Health Board.
Those who bothered to turn up learned that work will start next month on the rebuilding programme and if contracts schedules are met, then the job will completed in September 2008.
Brian Walden, general manager strategic development at the hospital, explained the design brief and what will be created for the multi-million budget the project has attracted. While Government stumps up with the bulk of the money, the board will have to borrow $4 million as its share.
Mr Walden said two new wings will be built ? one to house acute services, along with maternity and paediatric services, with the other putting a roof over four new operating theatres.
He said the construction programme will see the theatre wing built first with the acute services block following on from that. This two-pronged approach will allow the hospital to provide these services in their existing areas. As the new wings are completed the old ones will be demolished. Mr Walden said billions of dollars had been spent on health facilities around the country and now it was Wanganui's turn. "Until now we've been working with poor facilities. Services have been isolated and expensive to operate. And of course we've got seismic issues with both the theatres and maternity blocks too," he said.
He said the public tended to relate bed numbers to services but the rebuild will provide almost the same number of beds. However, he said the numbers of beds in some areas of the hospital will reflect the age demographic of the city and district.
The hospital currently has a capacity to provide 92 acute beds (mainly in Bakewell, Eason and Simpson wards). The redesign will drop this number to 82. However, some of these beds will relocate into the emergency department. At the same time the number of rehabilitation beds will be doubled ? to 24 ? which Mr Walden said reflected the region's aging population of the region.
"In maternity and child care we have less beds planned because we don't expect big increases immediately. Service demands will continue to grow in the aged care area," he said. And day care bed number will rise from 10 to 19.
"This time next year we should be using the new theatres and by September 2008 we'll have completed a sparkling new hospital.
"There will be some disruption during the building period but this will mainly affect traffic flows," he said. The foundations for the new wings will also include special rubber bearings to absorb the shock of earthquakes.Mr Walden said the design of the acute services and maternity wing allowed flexibility for the years ahead.
"Government was concerned that the design fitted the demand locally. So these buildings can adapt to the demand. "The secret of the new buildings are their flexibility. If there's growth in terms of a younger population then we can change the structure to accommodate that," he said. Asked about the energy efficiency of the new wings, Mr Walden said it was a matter of capital costs lining up against operational costs.
"We're looking at double glazing in some areas but that would obviously be in areas that were used more often than others."
Board chairman Dr Patrick O'Connor, in answer to a question the hospital's difficulties attracting and retaining staff in key areas, said he believed the new facilities would help.
"The facilities we're putting in place should accommodate the need and we're looking at getting the staff levels to handle it," Dr O'Connor said.
"I believe the new facility will definitely help. If it's an exciting place to work in, then people will want to work there."But these problems aren't going to go away. There's no easy answer but this (the new buildings) will help," he said.
Last night's meeting at the Eulogy Lounge at the Wanganui Racecourse is the first of several the board has planned to explain the hospital upgrade to the public.