Kaitaia Hospital future looks healthier

By TONY GEE

A Northland District Health Board plan to spend $9.3 million to redevelop Kaitaia Hospital and some of its services has been confirmed by Health Minister Annette King.

In Kaitaia yesterday, Ms King and Te Tai Tokerau MP Dover Samuels called on the local community to unite behind the new hospital and the investment in it.

They acknowledged it was not surprising that "some mistrust and doubt" about the future of Kaitaia Hospital and its services has remained because of past difficulties faced by Far North people in their battle to maintain health services.

But any possibility that 24-hour, seven-day-a-week surgery might be reinstated, after it was stopped 14 months ago, is ruled out.

Two weeks ago, residents called for the restoration of after-hours surgery. The issue was discussed in Kaitaia yesterday between the minister and representatives of the hospital action group and other organisations.

Ms King and Mr Samuels said future development at Kaitaia was based on an independent review team's recommendation that hospital services should continue but with the focus shifting from surgical and obstetric services to integrated preventive care.

The review team recommended against continuing 24-hour, seven-day surgical procedures and said these services should be restricted to normal Monday-to-Friday working hours.

A spokesman for Ms King said the minister and the district health board were following those recommendations, which also included more investment in emergency and patient retrieval work, improved antenatal care and relocating local GPs and iwi health providers to the hospital site.

Under a new Kaitaia Comprehensive Health Service scheme outlined yesterday, an integrated emergency department and accident and medical unit will be set up on the hospital site to join the existing inpatient facility. A new building will accommodate primary care providers.

There will be on-site access to pharmacy, laboratory and radiology services while maternity, community, public and mental health services, together with iwi providers, will also be part of the new Kaitaia health service.

Short staffed

* Twenty-four-hour, seven-day-a-week acute surgery at Kaitaia Hospital stopped in February last year.

* In the space of one year to May, 2002, 53 locums have worked at the hospital because of staff recruitment problems.

* Junior doctors and senior consultants have been flown in from cities to help out at weekends.