Medical Complex Proposed for GB

By GALE,Hayley

A $4 million combined hospital, medical centre and resthome has been proposed for Golden Bay.

The proposal replaces the Golden Bay Integrated Health Services Project’s original plans to build a one-stop shop on the site of the Golden Bay Community Hospital.

Steering group contractor John Ayling presented the proposal to the Golden Bay Community Board on Tuesday with the aid of a three- dimensional model of the project.

The mock-up showed separate wings for a doctors’ surgery, hospital beds and long-term accommodation.

Golden Bay’s existing facilities – the community hospital, the medical centre and Collingwood’s Joan Whiting Rest Home – would be sold off to finance the new building, the board heard.

Mr Ayling said two possible sites had been identified above the Takaka River floodplain but declined to reveal their whereabouts.

The group was asking for “in principle” support for the project, and public meetings on the proposal would be held in Golden Bay.

The steering group has been meeting for the past two years to determine the future of health care facilities in Golden Bay.

Plans to upgrade the medical centre have been put on hold since that time.

The new facility would help solve problems in recruiting and retaining doctors and nurses and the fragmentation of health services in the bay, he said.

“In addition, the medical centre is in desperate need of an upgrade and is no longer suitable.”

Joan Whiting would continue to suffer from financial viability problems faced by most small resthomes with low bed numbers, he added.

“The most significant issue is whether the three principal owners (the Nelson Marlborough District Health Board, the Tasman District Council’s Medical Centre Trust and the Joan Whiting Rest Home Trust) will merge their capital interests into a single identity,” he said.

(c) 2007 Nelson Mail, The. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.