Health minister Shane Reti says he’s using demand modeling to push out the completion dates for hospital rebuilds in Nelson and Whangarei.
Nelson will now be completed in 2043 rather than 2038.
Similar modeling in being used in Whangarei, which earlier this week issued a limited time code black with doctors turning away patients because there was 156 percent capacity in the emergency department .
“The demand modelling will take into account population growth and so one could anticipate before we started, spades in the ground, that we would cover off demandmodelling for changing demographics,” Dr Reti says.
Committed funds have already been used to build Whangarei’s new Kotuku maternity and paediatric unit, with a residential whanau house and an child health clinic to open soon.
