Hawke's Bay Hospital has grown in size by one prefabricated building to be used as an extension to the Emergency Department specialising in respiratory illness. Video Warren Buckland.
It's Hawke's Bay Hospital's emergency department, but not as you know it.
A prefabricated building sits beside the Hastings hospital's ED entrance, currently an empty shell, with fresh paint smell lingering.
In roughly one week it will be a fully kitted out extension of the department, set to be known for the short-term as EDX.
EDX will help separate Covid-19 symptomatic patients from the regular public who need to make trips to ED.
As ED consultant Dr Andrew Germann explains, it's needed whether Covid-19 spreads through the region or not.
Dr Andrew Germann says EDX is needed whether Covid-19 spreads in the region or not. Photo / Warren Buckland
Germann said normally about 120 people a day presented to ED in Hastings. That's dropped significantly since the lockdown started, leaving fears that people who were very ill or who had had a bad accident were putting off treatment.
"We need to make sure people aren't putting off coming because they don't feel safe," Germann said.
"This building should add another layer to keeping patients and staff safe and making people feel safe.
"In the past month we have seen numbers of presentations drop to below 100 and we want to make sure people aren't putting off seeking medical help because they are afraid to come to hospital."
The Hawke's Bay Homes built building, which is two old school classrooms combined together, had been destined for police use in Auckland.
Germann said with the onset of the pandemic it was quickly realised that new ways of managing people presenting to the department and keeping staff and other patients at all times safe was needed.
Megan Knowles, the building's capital project manager, said when they were looking at options she said they came to the decision they needed something that could arrive quickly and was already-built.
"We were very fortunate to find this available."
Hastings District Council, understanding the urgency, gave council approval, and it was shifted to the hospital within a week.
Just an empty shell at the moment, Germann said the plan was to get the building operational by April 28 "as long as all the equipment we need such as cubicle beds and curtaining arrive on time".
The white rectangular building will been made with patient safety as a priority.
Inside is allocated space to put on and take off personal protective equipment, a nurses' station, showers and individual cubicles to allow safe distancing during patient examinations.
"While we haven't had many people through the hospital with Covid-19, and those patients have been well managed, it only takes one patient with the virus or any other contagious disease like the flu and other people can be infected," Germann said.
"Having this building will help prevent that from happening.
"We aren't out of the woods with Covid-19 yet – and we won't be until there is a cure or vaccine so another priority of the district health board is to make sure people feel safe to come to ED."
The extension will likely be kept after the Covid-19 pandemic passes, though a Hawke's Bay DHB spokeswoman said no decision had yet been made on that.
