Waitakere Hospital

Waitakere Hospital is a general hospital located in the Henderson/Lincoln area of the New Zealand city of Auckland. 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 3 operating theatres. The hospital's Emergency Department is open to both adult and paediatric patients 24 hours a day, seven days a week.[1]

Waitakere Hospital
The entry area of the hospital.
Geography
LocationHenderson/Lincoln, Waitakere City, New Zealand.
Services
Emergency departmentN/A
Beds82
History
Opened1945
Links
Other linksList of hospitals in New Zealand
Some eastern-side buildings.

History

In 1945 the original Waitakere Maternity Hospital was a small building in Te Atatū. 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.[2]

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.[3] 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 Waitematā District Health Board.[4]

References
  1. Waitakere Hospital Archived 2007-07-21 at the Wayback Machine (official hospital website of the district health board)
  2. "{title}". Archived from the original on 2013-10-06. Retrieved 2013-09-15.
  3. Johnston, Martin (10 August 2006). "Waitakere patients face fees". The New Zealand Herald. Archived from the original on 2013-11-02. Retrieved 1 December 2011.
  4. Johnston, Martin (1 August 2008). "Hospital emergency department in 'crisis'". The New Zealand Herald. Archived from the original on 2013-11-02. Retrieved 1 December 2011.

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