Waitakere Hospital

Story

Waitakere Hospital is a general hospital located in the Henderson/Lincoln suburb area of Waitakere City, part of the Auckland area of New Zealand. It is administered by the Waitemata District Health Board and provides health services to approximately 560,000 residents throughout North Shore, Waitakere and Rodney districts of Auckland. It has 76 medical beds and 6 coronary care beds, a maternity unit and a surgical unit with 2 operating theatres. The hospital’s Emergency Department is open to both adult and paediatric patients 24 hours a day, seven days a week,.HistoryIn 1945 the original Waitakere Maternity Hospital was a small building in Te Atatu. The idea of a new hospital was raised that year, but it was another ten years before a site was found for the ‘North Western Hospital’.In the ensuing years a geriatric block was built and the site also became a base for community home health and support services, child disability services and for health services to school children - public health nurses, hearing and vision testing, school dental services.HealthWest, a private primary health provider, was as of 2006 in negotiations with the hospital to be allowed to provide fee-paying patients with medical services in the hospital. While this proposed measure did not go forward as of mid-2007, it highlighted the fact that even after the NZ$60 million upgrading to general hospital status, the facility was still facing shortages, like many other public health facilities in New Zealand. In the first five months of 2008, the emergency department of the hospital was forced into partial closure 52 times, and has still not officially become a 24/7 facility. This is being blamed on short-staffing and financial constraints of the District Health Board.