An artist impression of what the new Whangārei Hospital will look like. Photo / Supplied
Whangārei Hospital celebrated its 120-year history by revealing development plans for a new hospital worth more than half a billion dollars.
The hospital’s 120-year milestone is this Sunday but Northland District Health Board chief executive Dr Nick Chamberlain provided an early gift by revealing future plans for a new hospital, estimated to cost between $500m to $800m.
It is a far cry from the hospital's 1901 beginnings when it opened as Cottage Hospital with a nurse's cottage and two gender-split five-bed dorms - all for the price of £1440.
Chamberlain said a new hospital was the answer to regional issues around inadequate capacity and growing health inequities.
"We understand it is acknowledged that Whangārei Hospital is the highest priority major hospital redevelopment in New Zealand."
The main concept in the redevelopment would utilise a large amount of available area currently occupied by parking as well as smaller ambulatory and accommodation buildings between Hospital Rd and West End Ave.
This would allow the main hospital to be developed as a series of connected buildings instead of tall compact towers.
According to the NDHB this would help futureproof the hospital to meet the demands of Northland's population growth by optimising clinic adjacencies and future flexibility and growth.
The redevelopment would have the opportunity to be connected to the existing main campus via a link bridge across Hospital Rd. The main building could potentially become a future ambulatory and community zone.
The hospital redevelopment aimed to address three sets of property-related issues. The first being condition as the main block had seismic, fire safety, and other condition issues.
Secondly, areas within the hospital were too small compared with space guidelines and they failed to meet other standards related to size and fitness for purpose.
The last issue was overall capacity as demand either exceeded or will soon exceed physical capacity for the 246 inpatient beds, outpatient rooms, theatres and 31 emergency department beds.
The NDHB and Ministry of Health had been investigating large-scale remedies to these issues since 2015.
Chamberlain said NDHB was waiting on confirmation from Cabinet regarding the allocation of funding.
"We hope to have good news in the near future so we can start building a hospital that will be fit for purpose for the next 50 years and beyond."
The new hospital could take around four to five years to be built.
Improvements to healthcare facilities is a mainstay of Whangārei Hospital's 120-year history.
May this year marks the opening of the new Cardiac Catheter Laboratory which NDHB general manager - medical and elder services, Tracey Schiebli, said will mean fewer avoidable deaths because of the improved cardiac care it will provide.
At the same time two new operating theatres, adjacent to the existing theatre complex, will open.
"The theatre project seeks to address the current elective surgical demand which is exceeding the operating theatre capacity at Whangarei Hospital," Schiebli said.
Whangārei Hospital recently upgraded its X-ray fleet by investing in the country's first fleet of Mobilett Elara Max systems, which alongside Ysio Max, deliver cutting-edge digital X-ray imaging.
The upgrade was touted to provide an innovative approach to infection control, increase equitable access in the community to precision medicine, and help meet a greater demand for imaging services, Mark McGinley, NDHB general manager - surgical and support services said.
"The systems have provided great improvements in workflow efficiency while delivering the highest quality imaging possible and therefore have the added benefit of potentially decreasing wait-times."
Kaitaia born Helen Brown began her nursing career 56-years-ago at Whangārei Hospital in a time when things were "very, very different".
Since then she has spent her entire working life in Northland healthcare - a fact she described as a "wonderful privilege".
The same description was used after being asked to cut Whangārei Hospital's 120th birthday cake alongside retired surgeon, Bill Sugrue.
"Northland health has been my life and it's been wonderful. Even though everything has changed, it was still such a wonderful place to work and I just loved it."
Brown was 16 when she arrived at the Whangārei nurses' home in 1965 ready for her first day of training where they received their stiff uniforms - white ones for on-duty and blue ones for off-duty.
"We had to live in the nurses' home and had restricted hours where we had to be in by 9pm at night and were only allowed one 11.30pm pass a week," she said.
The new nurses' home was opened in 1924 and served as home for staff for more than 60 years. It the late 1980s it was converted into offices for the Area Health Board's newly formed health promotion and planning unit and renamed Maunu House.
The nurses trained onsite and worked six days a week with shifts of 6.15am- 3.15pm, 2.30pm-11.15pm and 11pm-7am.
"We were only allowed a half an hour break during our shifts and had to change out of white uniform into blue uniform - you could never leave the ward in your white uniform - and gobble all of our food, quickly grab a smoke and then change back into our white uniform."
Brown said in those days there was a real hierarchy she had to acknowledge.
"If a senior staff member came in the room we all had to stand."
Whangārei Hospital holds a special spot in Brown's heart as the on-site chapel was where she and her late husband Craig Brown were married in 1969.
Craig, who was the Whangārei Mayor for six years from 1998, had also dedicated a huge amount of time to Northland healthcare by serving on the NDHB for 15 years.
The pair met when Brown's classmate held a party and invited Craig.
It turned out to be a strange coincidence as she had earlier, by chance, treated Craig's father who had suggested setting her up with his son because he was so happy with how she treated him.
Brown said while she has done many things in her life, her work in Northland healthcare will always be one of the biggest contributors to her fulfilment.