Simeon Brown: Health Minister on government announces 140 new hospital beds for 2026

Attracting the extra staff needed for 140 new hospital beds could be a challenge.

The Government's announced new wards for Middlemore, Waikato, Wellington and Nelson hospitals, in addition to a new Hawke's Bay ward announced earlier this year.

Health Minister Simeon Brown told Andrew Dickens funding has been approved to recruit the additional 350 staff needed.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right. The government's adding one hundred and forty new
hospital beds across five hospitals from mid next year. Health
Minister Simy and Brown says Middlemore, White, Cator, Wellington and
Nelson will get new wards along with Hawk's Bay. They
announced the Hawks Bay ward earlier this year. The wards
will be built off site and then installed at each hospital.
They're calling them rapids build units, and so the Health

(00:22):
Minister Simyon Brown joins me now good barding to your Simion.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
So by rapid build I mean prefabs, emergency stop gaps.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
No, this is a different way of delivering hospital wards. Effectively,
it's building them off site means they can be built
a lot faster. But they're built to a fifty year
life expectancy, which is effectively the same as any any
BOLD of any major infrastructure. It's built to the building code.
So these are high quality, modern hospital wards. But by

(00:53):
delivering them through modular design, build off site, then deliver
and install, we can deliver this a lot faster, meaning
we get the benefits for patients and the staff a
lot sooner, so.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
They won't need to be replaced in the short term.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Absolutely not. But these are designs as are said to
the Building Code modern standards, But we have to do
things differently as a country if we want to get
the infrastructure we need much faster and also more cost effectively.
And that's the other benefit of doing things this way,
and we're open to looking at that through infrastructure. You've

(01:28):
seen that with the work Ericus Stanford's been doing with
school classrooms as well. How do we bring the cost down,
How do we deliver faster so that people actually benefit
from the infrastructure sooner, which is actually what we want
to build the infrastructure for now.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Will these one hundred and forty beds materially alter our
capacity and do they improve the core problem, which at
the end of the day is a shortage of staff.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
Look at the same time, howth New Zealand will be
investing in additional staff for these new wards because ultimately
we need to make sure that they're there for the
to be able to provide that extra care to patients.
But ultimately the purpose of these wards and these hospitals
is to do two things. One is to improve the
number of hospital beds, but also to help support additional

(02:12):
hospital flow through from the emergency department into the hospital.
So they've been around the hospitals, been identifying what the
critical pinch points are, what the key areas of need are,
and that's where the focus of these new wards will be,
so that we can make sure people are being seen sooner,
getting a treatment and any faster.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
So this is the future, this is how we're going
to see our hospitals built in the future.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Well, I think this is a new opportunity and this
is a different way of doing things, you know, when
it comes to some of the larger builds, this potential
are as well around modular design, construction and build as well. Ultimately,
though we want these buildings to be long lasting, they
need to be to high standards and to be able
to meet care that patients need. But we absolutely as

(02:56):
a country need to be looking at what is the
most cost effective way to deliver the infrastructure we need
so we can get it done quickly. We spend far
too long as a country talking about infrastructure and not
enough time delivering it, and so it's it's ways to
do things faster and cheaper, more cost effectively, so we
actually get the infrastructure delivered. We should absolutely before that.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
So while we're talking about infrastructure, while I've got you here.
The new Reefs Road flyover in Plakarga, which is an
AT project that you've been very supportive of for quite
some time, but they opened it up. It turns out
it's got traffic flow problems for the afternoon drive time.
So what's along with it and what are you going
to do?

Speaker 2 (03:32):
Oh if it's working very effectively for traffic going to
the city. I met someone the other days said they
used to spend forty minutes going to work. It's now
fifteen minutes, so that's fantastic. But on the way home
it used to have the key the key intersection where
the traffic met used to have three lanes off throughput.
Now it's down to two. And so the simple message
to Eukland transporters we need a third lane when the

(03:54):
intersection redesigned. Ultimately, if you reduce the number of lanes,
you reduce the flow and the traffic backs up. So
we meet with allcing Transport on Friday. They're going to
have a we look at it, and my message to
them as we need to look at it changes pigeonly.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
And it's an early start for you. How are we
going with the wage negotiations.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
In terms of the negotiations with the unions around the bargaining.
Bargaining does continue and my message to both parties is
to negotiate in good faith and find a resolution so
that we can continue to provide the care that patients need.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
Simeon, I thank you very much for your time, Simon
and joining us from the airport. He's taking the brand
new Red Eye which happens at six o'clock to Wellington.
Right now, getting into work early for more from Early
Edition with Ryan Bridge.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
Listen live to news Talks it be from five am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.