Hospital expansion to ease crisis delays

The emergency department at North Shore Hospital has been plagued by overcrowding and patient delays. Photo / Dean Purcell

Overcrowding and patient delays at North Shore Hospital in Auckland are expected to ease further under a $48 million expansion plan.

The Government said yesterday it had approved the scheme, including a redesign of the emergency department, which is only eight years old.

The latest plans - to extend the part of the hospital known as Lakeview because it overlooks Lake Pupuke - will create an assessment and diagnostic unit beside a rebuilt ED, and add a 30-bed ward.

The hospital has added many beds in the past two years and now has just over 200 medical and surgical beds - but still not enough for a population growing at 2-3 per cent a year and ageing. Elderly people need more hospital care than younger adults.

Patients have often had to wait in the North Shore ED for many hours, and in some cases even days, to be admitted to a ward, because the hospital has been overcrowded.

Specialists estimate that leaving patients waiting too long in EDs leads to about 400 deaths a year nationally.

"The aim of the Lakeview extension is to alleviate emergency department overcrowding, increase our bed numbers and improve patient flow through the hospital," said Waitemata District Health Board chief executive Dave Davies.

The 2001 rebuilding of the emergency department was hailed as an improvement to patient safety because it incorporated the old acute assessment ward that had been upstairs.

The new plans in effect recreate that ward - now to be called the assessment and diagnostic unit - but it will be beside the ED, ensuring good flow and communication.

Another new ward, with 25 beds, is also planned, to be built next year at a cost of $9 million.

The health board hopes the Government will in future support a plan to build a second tower block by 2014.

This would be three years later than the timetable stated in 2007 when public anger with the overcrowding problem was at its height.

To help reduce patient delays nationally, Health Minister Tony Ryall intends to impose firm targets on the maximum time patients should spend in EDs. A task force recommended six hours - and a ban on leaving patients in ED corridors.

IMPROVEMENTS

North Shore Hospital gets:
* Assessment and diagnostic unit: 50 beds.
* Rebuilt emergency department: 38 patient beds/trolleys.
* Extra ward: 30 beds.

Cost:
* $48 million.

When:
* Building to start by September.
* Finish: 2011.