Hospital wards lie empty because of lack of money

Press, 20 April 1979, Page 1

Hospital wards lie empty because of lack of money

Health reporter Eight wards al the Christchurch Hospital lie empty because the Government has not yet said whether money will he available to commission them.

Two of the wards are new. They are part of the .SI7M clinical services block which accepted its first patients in February last year. The remaining six wards are those . left vacant by hospital departments which have moved into the clinical services block over the last 14 months.

Since February, 1978, 10 wards in the clinical services block have been occupied at a commissioning cost of about S2M. A further grant of $500,000 to put the last two wards of the block into use is unlikely soon.

The Minister of Health (Mr Gair) said last month that constraints on health spending might mean that some new hospital buildings will be “mothballed” to save paying commissioning grants. The North Canterbury Hospital Board has been told that no commitment has been made on the grant for the next year “or in following years.” Board proposals for a SIM facelift for some of the six old wards was vetoed by the Government and the board has had to make do with a ceiling figure of $200,000 which it has chosen io use to renovate a seventh empty ward as an intensive care unit. It will require further finance for commissioning. The main areas affected include an additional orthopedic ward, a ward for urological medicine, and a ward to house the

proposed new neurosurgical unit. Dr D. A. Andrews, medical superintendent of the Christchurch Hospital, said yesterday that the six wards would be forced to remain empty unless some assurance was given that money would be available.

Plans had started for more new wards but it would probably be more than 10 years before these would be available. In the meantime, the old wards should be used, Dr Andrews said.

Until the board and hospital authorities knew how much finance would be available it would be impossible to plan priorities for the use of the vacated wards. Dr Andrews said that the increasing pressure on the hospital from road accidents alone was sufficient to make a strong case for use of renovated wards.

The hospital faced a prospect of further long waiting lists unless firm action was taken on the eight empty wards. The acting chief executive of the Hospital Board (Mr G. W. Davies) said the board was working on requests to the Government for new commissioning grants for additional wards which it was hoped to bring into use in the next financial year. These would cover the two new wards and some of the old wards.