A year after it was meant to be receiving patients, stage 2 of the upgrade of Dunedin Hospital’s intensive care unit could be another 18 months away from opening. The delay-plagued project is meant to add another 10 urgently needed critical care beds to the hospital’s current 12 ICU beds. The present building has multiple heating and ventilation systems and their specifications and capabilities are not clearly set out. For the past 12 months, engineers have experimented with a variety of ways to get the ward open, including building an entirely new dedicated air conditioning system for it. Although a new building with a new ICU was planned to be open within 10 years, the SDHB believed it was still worth persevering to get stage 2 of the development in the old building open, Mr Ng said.

Source: Otago Daily Times April 07, 2021 16:30 UTC