{"id":890,"date":"2021-09-02T00:53:16","date_gmt":"2021-09-02T00:53:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=890"},"modified":"2021-09-02T00:53:16","modified_gmt":"2021-09-02T00:53:16","slug":"aucklands-three-main-hospitals-build-more-negative-pressure-rooms-for-covid-19-patients","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=890","title":{"rendered":"Auckland&#8217;s three main hospitals build more negative pressure rooms for Covid-19 patients"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>All three of Auckland&#8217;s main hospitals are building more negative pressure rooms to keep up with the Delta strain of Covid-19.<\/p>\n<div class=\"photo-captioned photo-captioned-full photo-cntr eight_col \">\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\">\n<div style=\"width: 487px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/assets\/news_crops\/129428\/eight_col_MiddlemoreHospital-1.jpg?1630477995\" alt=\"A security guard worked at Middlemore Hospital's emergency department on Thursday last week while symptomatic with Covid-19.\" width=\"477\" height=\"298\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Middlemore Hospital. Photo: LDR<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The city&#8217;s district health boards have revealed details of the work that is going on at the same time as they treat 32 Covid-19 patients between them, eight in intensive care.<\/p>\n<p>A DHB spokesperson said the negative pressure rooms were being built at Middlemore, Auckland City and North Shore hospitals in general wards, intensive care units and emergency departments.<\/p>\n<p>They were adding more of the rooms, which prevent the virus spreading to other areas because of the increased transmissibility of Covid, she said.<\/p>\n<p>The work included engineering to create the ability to have negative pressure, and more minor building work to reconfigure spaces.<\/p>\n<p>Questions have been raised about why the hospitals were not more prepared for the outbreak.<\/p>\n<p>They have also asked for up to 30 intensive care nurses to be diverted from around the country to help with the Covid-19 response.<\/p>\n<p>A spokesperson for the Intensive Care Society, Andrew Stapleton, said there were not 30 ICU nurses spare around New Zealand.<\/p>\n<p>There had been shortages for years.<\/p>\n<p>If they were all needed, services in other parts of the country would likely be hit, he said.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the country&#8217;s ICUs are not full because they have been at level four but may not be able to resume normal service if their nurses had to go to Auckland.<\/p>\n<p>It was good planning by the Auckland DHBs to ask for more staff but they may not need them, he said.<\/p>\n<p>General nurses were also being recruited to help in managed isolation facilities.<\/p>\n<p>Health authorities have rejected criticism that they should have been more prepared for the possibility of another major outbreak, saying the current moves are part of their surge plans.<\/p>\n<p>A DHB spokesperson said they had plans in place for some time and had been amending them as they learned more about the infectious Delta strain.<\/p>\n<p>There were currently 40 negative pressure rooms across the city, 17 at Middlemore, 13 at Auckland and 10 at North Shore.<\/p>\n<p>-Via<strong> RNZ<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>All three of Auckland&#8217;s main hospitals are building more negative pressure rooms to keep up with the Delta strain of Covid-19. The city&#8217;s district health boards have revealed details of the work that is going on at the same time as they treat 32 Covid-19 patients between them, eight in intensive care. A DHB spokesperson [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":891,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172,222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-covid-19","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=890"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":892,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890\/revisions\/892"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}