KEY POINTS:
Big-city facilities have arrived at Thames Hospital, with its new multimillion-dollar emergency, outpatient and radiology areas all ready for their first patients this month.
Part of the hospital's $16 million redevelopment, begun in 2006, the new areas will blitz the abilities of those they are replacing, hospital staff say.
The new emergency department will boast the expected improvements from a newly built area - more room, light, patient capacity and newer equipment.
But it also adds new features the hospital's original department, housed in a 107-year-old building, never had.
These include:
* A negative pressure isolation room for contagious patients.
* A separate room and toilet for child patients.
* A decontamination room to clean people exposed to chemicals or P-labs.
* A staff room and staff base allowing staff to view most of the department from one spot.
* Private and comfortable whanau areas for families of seriously ill patients.
* Two observation rooms to give up to 23 hours' ongoing emergency department care for those in need. Previously such patients had to go to a ward.
* A weatherproof and private double ambulance bay, replacing the old exposed single bay.
The new department packs in 16 rooms - more than double the seven rooms in the original.
The new outpatient area is also a vast step forward, taking the number of clinical rooms from 11 to 17.
It also includes better waiting areas, more rooms, private and comfortable areas for chemotherapy, on-site parking and a significantly improved call system.
The new radiology area houses more advanced x-ray equipment and has a floor strong enough to handle the CT scanner. The old department's floor could not, forcing the scanner out to another part of the hospital.
Jacquie Mitchell, Thames Coromandel Hauraki service manager for the Waikato District Health Board, said the improvements offered far better facilities to the region's sick and injured - something the population had waited more than a decade for.
"The community has been waiting a very long time for this. There have been various plans in the past - in the nineties it was decided we needed more. But they hadn't come to fruition."
Staff were grateful with the quality and space of the new areas, a factor Mrs Mitchell said should improve staff recruitment and retention.
The new areas will be open for public viewing on Friday, and open to patients on October 30.
The hospital's new inpatient ward is expected to open in December, and a new $893,000 maternity area able to handle 200 births a year - more than current capacity and demand - will open in early 2010.
