This week’s news that cuts to the in-patient building are being considered which go beyond finding more efficient ways to build smacks of short-term penny-pinching madness.
It beggars belief consideration is being given to not fitting out an 11-bed "short stay" pod in the emergency department and incorporating these beds in acute wards.
Presumably, that means 11 fewer beds for acute patients.
Shelling areas is always short-sighted. Because fit-out costs will only increase, there is a risk future governments will always be able to find an excuse not to proceed and these areas will end up as wasted space.
Former ED head and later Southern District Health Board member, the redoubtable Dr John Chambers, described it as crazy. We agree.
His prediction is if the changes go ahead the new ED would be overflowing within a week.
A perusal of decades of Otago Daily Times headlines about the inadequacy of the existing ED and the issues caused by a piecemeal approach to improvements should make any planners cautious about altering this part of the plan.
Proposals to downgrade aspects of the new operating theatres must make existing surgeons and theatre staff’s hearts sink.
Leaks, and air conditioning held together with duct tape in parts, have featured in news articles about the state of the current theatres in recent years. Staff would not be expecting their capacity to carry out high-risk procedures in the new hospital to be compromised by downgrading ventilation in one of the new theatres.
It is difficult to know whether to laugh or cry at the idea installing one of the lifts might be delayed. It might be good for the health to use stairs, but will that suit the infirm? Perhaps abseiling down the lift shaft will be an option.
The bean counters need to get up to speed with an understanding of the obesity epidemic and the costs associated with not having such equipment, both in nursing time and possible ACC claims.
Suggestions about cutting the number of back-up generators, even though it could mean inadequate power in an outage, and changing the building heating so it is more expensive to run, are absurd.
It is hard to know how such ideas could even make it into an official document at this late stage. Maybe they have been included to highlight the folly of such changes?
What must be remembered is the agreed business case for the hospital rebuild was not plucked out of the air by big spenders hell-bent on bankrupting the country with their grandiose ideas.
The plan followed years of discussions, including with clinicians, each of whom would have wanted the best deal for their patients in the decades ahead. There would have already been plenty of compromise and concessions made before the final document was written.
Nobody wants the government to be wasting money on any project, but constant tinkering with the hospital design must stop and is only likely to prove more expensive and time-wasting in the long term.
With the number of fires the government is ineptly fighting on the health front, we hope the prospect of seeing southerners take to the streets again over the hospital rebuild might make it see sense.
Spreading dismay
The leaking of an email to RNZ about stopping the supply of toast and spreads for women after giving birth in the Capital, Coast and Hutt Valley area provoked a storm (almost in an actual tea cup) which the government sensibly moved quickly to quell.
The leak suggests there may be considerable disquiet among health workers about the pettiness of some of the cost-saving sought.
The government and cost-cutting health commissioner Lester Levy have a long way to go to convince them and the public they are on the right path with their $1.4 billion savings requirement.
