Frustrated staff fear they’ll be stuck in limbo at the ageing Dunedin Hospital after health bosses confirmed plans to keep it open well after its replacement is built. On Friday, the ODT revealed the hospital would probably need millions of dollars spent to upgrade its 10 lifts after a report flagged serious safety concerns. In justifying spending on the lifts, Health New Zealand Te Waipounamu regional head of infrastructure Rob Ojala said parts of the existing ward block would be used after the completion of the new Dunedin hospital in 2031. “This means the lift replacement is necessary to support continued service delivery and maintain the building’s functionality for the years ahead.” Asked about which departments would be affected, Dr Ojala said the site master planning process for the wider Dunedin health precinct remained ongoing. This lack of public information has frustrated parts of the healthcare fraternity. New Zealand Nurses Organisation president Anne Daniels, who also works at the present Dunedin Hospital, said too many questions were unanswered. She wanted to know why HNZ were going to keep the old facility open. “What purpose will it be to keep it open? I would look at current plans of what’s not supposed to be in the new hospital. “What is not going to be there that is necessary for the daily functioning of a tertiary hospital? For instance, the pathology lab.” Ms Daniels said information about the next stages should be available in some form right now. “We should know what services are going to remain in the old hospital. “We’ve been told over and over again by this government that the new hospital is going to add efficiency, effectiveness and potentially reduce costs. How are we going to do that if we’re actually having to take things up and down the road?” The idea of carting material across the road to get to the pathology lab particularly concerned Ms Daniels. “When patients are in crisis we need answers very, very quickly. “And I’m talking minutes here — not half an hour to an hour to get a lab specimen down the road to where it’s going, get it assessed and then have hopefully an IT system which gives us the results.” Former emergency department head t Dr John Chambers said running two hospitals at once would be “curious”. “If it’s happening just because of budgetary reasons then that’s a bit silly. “It’s false economy, I would have thought. “It does sound expensive to run two buildings. “But if there’s no plans to actually have a sizable psychiatric unit in the new hospital, and they were to keep that going in the current ward block, then that’s better than nothing.” Dunedin Hospital has been at its present site since 1865 and provides 388 beds across a number of wards. It employs over 3000 staff, providing medical services across all specialities and a broad array of subspecialities, and serves as a teaching hospital, with strong links to the University of Otago and Otago Polytechnic.
