Tōtara Haumaru surgical building opens at North Shore Hospital on Monday after delays caused by staff shortages

A new 150-bed surgical facility at North Shore Hospital will take its first patients on Monday.

The $317 million Tōtara Haumaru building was officially opened on Sunday by Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. Thirteen patients are scheduled for surgery on the first day.

The facility, which has eight surgical theatres, will have capacity for 15,000 operations a year once fully staffed - which is projected to be mid-2025.

Tōtara Haumaru was originally scheduled to open in December but was delayed because it did not have enough staff.

When it opens, it will be partly dependent on clinical and non-clinical workers from other parts of the hospital. Of the 140 staff working in the new surgical building, 36 are new recruits. It will eventually require more than 250 staff to be fully operational.

Reti said he was confident that enough staff would be recruited to run the facility. He confirmed there were some restrictions on hiring across the health sector but said that was to ensure the right staff were hired at the right places.

Tōtara Haumaru will be opened in stages. By September, four theatres and two endoscopy rooms will be running. Reti said an estimated 2000 operations will take place in the first year.

That would help address the growing wait lists for elective surgery, he said, which was one of the Government’s five national health targets.

Health NZ data shows that the number of patients who were approved for surgery but were not treated within four months has grown by 24% over the last year.

Health NZ director group operations Brad Healey said he expected Tōtara Haumaru to have “an immediate impact”. It would eventually have capacity for 8000 surgeries a year and 7500 endoscopies, he said.

It was previously reported that doctors and staff had become frustrated as the Tōtara Haumaru building was completed earlier this year but sitting empty.

Staff at North Shore Hospital told the Herald earlier this month that nurses and doctors in the main hospital who were being moved to the new surgical building were not being replaced in their old roles.

That meant the hospital’s existing surgical theatres would be short-staffed when the new building opened next month, one staff member claimed.

Health NZ spokesman Mark Shepherd told the Herald that existing staff who were working on elective lists would rotate through all of the surgical theatres.

On top of the 36 staff who had been recruited, an additional 101 staff would be recruited over the next year to allow the entire facility to be used.

“As is always the case with large new hospital facilities, Tōtara Haumaru will be opened in stages, with theatres and wards brought online progressively as capacity, staffing and resourcing is scaled-up over time,” Shepherd said.

North Shore Hospital head of surgery Dr Diana Ackerman said the new facility would help separate acute and elective operations.

That meant people with planned surgery would not be displaced by emergency surgeries. She said these postponements would be “reduced or hopefully eliminated”.

The facility also featured new robotic systems - known as Da Vinci Robots - which could provide minimally invasive surgeries. Initially focused on prostate operations, it would gradually be extended to gynaecology and other areas.

The facility takes its name from a single tōtara tree which was previously at the site. The timber from that tree has been carved into a pou in the building’s main entrance.

Isaac Davison is an Auckland-based reporter who covers health issues. He joined the Herald in 2008 and has previously covered the environment, politics and social issues.