Funding announced for new acute hospital building for Taranaki DHB

Taranaki DHB Chair, Pauline Lockett welcomes the Ministers announcement that $300m of Wellbeing budget funding has been prioritised to build a new acute hospital building on its Taranaki Base Hospital campus.

Mrs Lockett said, “This is a significant milestone for Taranaki DHB and our community. We are thrilled the Government has prioritised this funding to upgrade our hospital and health facilities with a new acute hospital building to be built on our Taranaki Base Hospital campus.”

The DHB’s plans are well progressed to build a new purpose built clinical and acute hospital building to be completed in 2023. This will see the transfer of its acute clinical services including Emergency Department, Intensive Care Unit, Laboratory, Radiology and Maternity, out of earthquake prone buildings into a new modern, fit for purpose building.

Rosemary Clements, Taranaki DHB CE said, “The New East Wing building will be capable of providing emergency medical and surgical care post a major disaster. It will deliver modern models of care and improve service delivery which improves patient outcomes and quality of care.”

In 2018 final seismic assessments confirmed four of the hospital’s clinical buildings and three office buildings were Earthquake Prone and recommendations for their remediation were made in a seismic risk management plan.

“Overall the reports provided validation for plans that were already underway to improve the structural integrity of the hospital campus, including the hospital’s New East Wing,” Mrs Clements said.

The new building will also see significant improvements in the resilience of buildings and infrastructure, including power supply, water storage, computer systems, structural resilience and medical gas supply to the entire Taranaki Base Hospital campus.

The New East Wing will comply with the Earthquake-Prone Building Amendment Act, meet the NZ Building Code and comply with the Health & Safety at Work Act.

“The building concept designs are based on 10 key design principles. These principles keep us focused on what is most important and put patients and whanau at the centre,” Mrs Clements said.

Evidence based population projections have been used to predict future capacity requirements and identify future service volumes and bed projections.

“This will enable the new building to manage increasing capacity and growth in demand for acute services for now and into the future,” Mrs Clements said.

The new building will represent good value for money by investing in a new resilient and modern building that is designed to be environmentally sustainable, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and energy costs as opposed to refurbishing aged and earthquake prone buildings. The overall aim is to try and achieve a 5-star Greenstar Certification from the NZ Green Building Council, which represents NZ best practice in both design and construction.

Mrs Clements explained, “Hospital buildings are the single greatest government building energy consumer in New Zealand so this represents an opportunity to have a significant impact in reducing the DHB’s carbon, water and energy footprint. As well as reducing operating costs via lower energy demand, 5-star healthcare buildings also improve building user’s wellbeing, reduce patient stay durations and improve staff productivity. Designing and building the New East Wing Building to a 5-star level aligns strongly with the Zero Carbon Bill 2050 and the Taranaki 2050 Roadmap too.

“The design is culturally safe, with continuing engagement with the Te Whare Puanga Korero (TWPK) Iwi Relationship Board together with the DHB’s Maori Health service to strengthen bicultural design principals,” Mrs Clements said.

Final approval of Project Maunga’s Stage Two hospital redevelopment is subject to the Detailed Business Case (DBC) being approved. Work towards this next stage is already well advanced and the DBC will be submitted to the CIC in March 2020 with construction planned to begin at the end of 2020/early 2021.

“At the moment planning and work is well on track to achieve this new and exciting milestone for Taranaki,” Mrs Clements added.

ENDS

© Scoop Media