Your whare is a spiritual place - and the hard mahi happening here means we are in the best place to help protect our whanau and community.
Not only are our staff well prepared for COVID-19, but now our building facilities and services are at the ready, thanks to the tireless work of our Facilities, Engineering and Asset Management (FEAM) team.
Thanks to their hard work, 100 % fresh air now, now circulates in the units that supply air to and from the wards in Edmund Hillary Building, ICU and Galbraith Birthing and Assessment, helping to mitigate any potential risk of spreading COVID-19 via centralised ventilation systems.
Our Scott Building wards have also undergone an oxygen supply upgrade and the building is now predominantly a negative airflow facility making it suitable to accommodate and treat COVID-19 patients.
Upgrades on Tiaho Mai ventilation systems are also underway.
“These facilities upgrades play a vital role in helping to preventing hospital transmission of airborne diseases.” says Anton Venter, General Manager, Facilities, Engineering and Asset Management.
With all hands on deck, the team have pulled out all stops to increase the number of negative pressure rooms available which now also includes rooms in Kidz First Children’s Hospital, where existing isolation rooms have been converted into negative pressure isolation rooms for treating children who are COVID-19 patients.
A project converting four bed bays in the Paediatric ICU into negative pressure rooms in the area and is also now complete.
Dialysis capability has also been added to some isolation rooms to allow for management of an outbreak within our renal patients.
Our Intensive Care Unit (ICU) COVID-19 capacity has been modified to provide ICU level care for up to 10 patients in negative pressure rooms and our Emergency Department (ED) capability improvements will add 16 standard isolation rooms to ED in the near future.
Recently with the current surge, more COVID-19 wards have been created in the other areas of the hospital as well.
When patients arrive at ED, they are now directed to a semi-permanent structure outside ED, to create a pathway where patients are screened before entering.
There has been a lot of work been carried by the FEAM team, playing a part in keeping our staff and patients safe.
These are just some of the projects happening at CM Health and we thank our Facilities and Engineering team for their hard work designed to keep our staff and community safe.
