Tower tops hospital plans for expansion

Dwayne Crombie

Plans are being drawn up to build a new tower block at North Shore Hospital to expand its capacity by up to 80 per cent.

The scheme is part of a 20-year regional strategy for Auckland's public hospitals to cope with rapid population growth and even faster increases in the number of elderly.

The Waitemata District Health Board will discuss the scheme today and officials expect to apply for the needed district-plan changes within weeks.

Chief executive Dwayne Crombie said yesterday the plan, which could take several years to gain approval, was to build a second tower block on the hospital's Shakespeare Rd site, fitting it out progressively.

At first only two wards and a cardiology unit were planned. With the building shell, this would cost an estimated $40 million.

"It's something that will come into play between 2011 and 2015."

Eventually, the new building would add more than 300 beds and up to 10 operating theatres to the existing 400 beds and nine theatres.

"We need to deal with population growth and aging in this area," Dr Crombie said.

Waitemata's population is projected to grow by 44 per cent between 2001 and 2026, and the region's by 46 per cent. But at 6 per cent, the annual increase in the number of Waitemata people over 65 - a group who tend to be higher users of hospitals - is more than twice the rate for all ages.

"We've got quite a lot of demand pent up. Even though we've got strategies to do primary care, self-help and community care, there's going to be a need for beds and theatres," Dr Crombie said.

Auckland's three health boards have spent hundreds of millions of dollars since the late-1990s building new hospital facilities, including five new emergency departments and the entire Auckland City Hospital.

Waitemata spent $120 million upgrading North Shore Hospital and upgrading and expanding Waitakere Hospital, and the Auckland board spent around $550 million on its new city hospital, Green Lane Clinical Centre and associated upgrades.

North Shore Hospital opened in 1984 and cost $30 million.