$30m leap forward at Tamaki campus

By BERNARD ORSMAN

A new $30 million school with a community and public health focus that brings together academics, students and public clinics opens its doors today at Auckland University's Tamaki campus.

The School of Population Health is focused on a diverse range of health and science services, including hearing, speech language therapy and optometry clinics open to the public.

It will consider health issues facing entire population groups, such as Maori and Pacific Islanders, to develop practical, broad-based solutions alongside hospitals, doctors, nurses and other health providers.

For example, staff at the school are running clinical trials to find a vaccine for New Zealanders under the age of 20 for the meningococcal epidemic that has affected 4700 people since 1991 and killed more than 200.

The disease is most rampant among Pacific Islanders and Maori in South Auckland.

School head Professor Alastair Woodward said: "It is the first time I know of a university school of this kind that has included both the research arm and a community practice arm. It's a very exciting move."

Associate Professor Suzanne Purdy, head of speech language therapy, said audiology had previously been based at the medical school in the city and it made sense to link up.

"People who have hearing problems often have related speech problems and now we will have this opportunity to not only do research but also to see each other's clients."

The clinic will operate four days a week at first and then five.

"We have a waiting list already," Suzanne Purdy said.

The school, located in a four-storey, light-filled building designed by Architectus Auckland, will have 420 staff and 648 students.

The head of Tamaki campus, Professor Ralph Cooney, said the new school fitted the "Knowledge Wave" model being developed at the 32ha Tamaki site to create a research and post-graduate intensive environment in conjunction with the community and private sector.

"This is a campus in which it is both permissible and desirable that people work in partnership internally and externally. This school is hugely important. It gives the campus a certain amount of gravitas," Mr Cooney said.

The campus population is set to jump from 1200 students last year to 3100 by the end of this year with a similar jump to 650 university staff. Within the next decade, the student population will reach 10,000, half of whom will be post-graduates.

The campus is also setting up a National Academy of Sport alongside new netball facilities at Ngahue Reserve and the crown research institute, Landcare Research, is building a $7.5 million ecologically "green" building complete with composting toilets.

Tamaki campus is one of five major developments Auckland City Council is working on with other public bodies and the private sector to attract more business and residential development and revive the area.

The other developments are turning the 110ha Mt Wellington Quarry into a new suburb for 8000 people; converting the rows of World War II sheds at Sylvia Park next to the Mt Wellington Highway into a shopping complex twice the size of St Lukes, with community facilities and a new $3 million railway station; Housing New Zealand's $28 million redevelopment of the Talbot Park housing block in Glen Innes; and a $3 million council upgrade of the Glen Innes and Panmure town centres.

School of Population Health

Where: Tamaki campus

Who: 420 staff, 648 students

Why: To consider health issues facing entire population groups and develop solutions alongside hospitals, doctors, nurses and other health providers.