New children's base a picture of health

By MARTIN JOHNSTON health reporter

The Seven Dwarfs have moved in and the smiling animals on the cubicle curtains are waiting.

All the Starship hospital's new emergency department needs now are the children and staff.

They will move in from the cramped, 12-year-old facility next door when the new, spacious department opens on Tuesday.

Dopey, Bashful and the other five famous dwarfs have pride of place as a colourful mobile.

To ease the move, hospital staff are asking that sick or injured children be taken to GPs unless it is an emergency.

The shift marks the start of a huge migration of hospital patients, health workers and equipment into Starship and the new Auckland City Hospital under the Auckland District Health Board's $447 million rebuilding plan. The board's acute mental health unit moved into its new building in February.

The hospital's shift will take place in stages over the coming 11 months.

The clinical director of the children's emergency department, Dr Richard Aickin, says the new department will be a huge improvement for patients, their caregivers and staff.

Sited in a new, three-level building that links Auckland City Hospital and Starship, it cost about $5 million to build and $1 million has been spent on new equipment.

It has the same number of beds - 22 plus four resuscitation bays - but double the floor space, 1400sq m.

Sizeable cubicles mean a doctor, patient and family members can be together comfortably.

Two of the five isolation rooms - a first for the department - have the special air-conditioning set-up needed for nursing patients with highly infectious conditions such as tuberculosis or Sars.

Three rooms are designated for procedures such as inserting intra-veinous lines or doing a lumbar puncture on a suspected meningococcal disease sufferer. The old department has one, so many patients faced delays.

The resuscitation bays are bigger, giving the 10 staff who can be needed around a trauma victim more working space. There are ceiling-mounted booms to take more of the tubes and leads that are connected to patients, and better cardiac monitors.

At the most basic level, there are more toilets - five instead of one for patients and caregivers - baby-changing rooms and better family facilities in the short-stay area.

Dr Aickin said best of all, the department had been designed from scratch as an emergency department.