Hospital cuts water to test planning

By Rosaleen MacBrayne

Tauranga Hospital is going ahead with contingency plans to avoid millennium-bug mayhem, despite being accused of Y2K hysteria.

On Tuesday, it will conduct a 48-hour water rationing exercise to test how it copes with a reduced supply.

The hospital uses about 215 cu m of water a day, and wants to find out how much to bring in by tanker on New Year's Eve, when it plans to disconnect from the city supply for fear of over-chlorination caused by computer malfunction.

Meters would be read before and after the rationing exercise, during which all departments would minimise water consumption, said Robert Patton, risk management coordinator for Pacific Health, which runs Tauranga and Whakatane hospitals.

Signs in key areas, such as above basins and toilets, would encourage everyone "to do their bit."

They would suggest patients have a sponge-down instead of a daily bath and flush the toilet only on solid wastes.

Mr Patton promised no reduction in hospital services during the 48-hour test, only "altered practices."

He makes no apologies for Pacific Health's decision to disconnect from the national electricity grid and local water mains before midnight on New Year's Eve to avoid any computer breakdown problems.

A similar water rationing exercise is planned at Whakatane Hospital.

The chief executive of Transpower, Bob Thomson, has described the move as millennium-bug hysteria.

"We have spent two years and $8 million on an external audit of our computer systems," he said.

"I am confident they won't go haywire on New Year's Eve."

But Mr Patton says there are no written guarantees nothing will go wrong.

"We're using a worst-case scenario to make sure we can cope with the failure of any system."