The North Shore Hospital in Auckland has opened a new surgical building named Tōtara Haumaru. The opening was delayed due to staff shortages. The new $317 million facility, which was officially opened by Health Minister Shane Reti, has 150 beds, surgical theatres, and four endoscopy suites.
However, the opening of the new building means that no new patients will receive surgery, as other parts of the hospital will have to close to staff the new building. In its first year, the hospital plans to perform 2000 elective procedures.
Brad Healey, the director of operations at North Shore Hospital, said that once fully operational, the facility would help reduce patient wait lists by taking on work from other parts of Auckland and Northland. He also mentioned that the separation of planned care from acute care would ensure that booked patients are less likely to have their treatment deferred due to urgent demands.
Healey also stated that the population of Auckland and Northland is expected to increase by nearly a quarter in the next 20 years, with the number of people aged over 75 doubling. The new building could potentially perform 8000 surgeries and 7500 endoscopy procedures each year.
Despite the positive outlook, the project has been affected by staff shortages and was originally supposed to open in December 2023. Sarah Dalton from the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists expressed concerns about recruiting enough staff for the facility to operate at full capacity. She suggested that more efforts are needed to make the health sector a more appealing career option.
Labour’s health spokesperson, Ayesha Verrall, said the facility would mostly use staff from other postings and perform surgeries already planned to take place in other hospitals. She criticized Health Minister Shane Reti for moving surgeries from existing hospitals to the new one to give the impression that it is operational. Verrall urged Reti to end the hiring freeze at Health New Zealand and enable full recruitment so that the facility can provide the additional 15,000 procedures it was designed for.
