Stalled opening of Waitākere Hospital intensive care unit a ‘smack in the face’ for community, leader says

The stalled opening of Waitākere Hospital’s long awaited intensive care unit is a “smack in the face” for the community, a West Auckland leader says.

Waitākere Hospital’s brand new six bed unit is fully equipped and had originally been due to open by the end of the year.

It was part of the new Manaaki Hōhonu building that opened last month, but the ICU was sitting empty with no operating budget, no staff and no opening date.

Waitākere Ranges local board chairperson Mark Allen said the current default ICU for the areas is North Shore Hospital which can take 90 minutes to get to for some people in the areas he represents.

It had long been acknowledged more health services – including the ICU – were needed in the west, he said.

“Then to find it’s not being resourced is like a smack in the face,” he said.

“It takes years, I know, to plan these things but I just don’t understand how we couldn’t have had the staffing and the operating system decided before [the building] was opened.”

Auckland Council’s Waitākere ward councillor Shane Henderson said the situation was a disgrace and a lot of people in the community were angry.

“We’ve been slammed for so long but now we’re feeling let down and we feel like we’re getting the raw end of the stick again and we’re being sent half way across the city for treatment when we shouldn’t be,” he said.

West Auckland resident and former pro wakeboarder Brad Smeele was a regular user of the health system as someone with C4 quadraplegia.

Being close to a hospital could make a big difference to whether patients could easily get support from those who cared about them, he said.

“I spent five weeks in an ICU after my accident and I know the importance of not only quality care but also the added comforts that allow family members to be able to stay and to really be able to support someone in a tough situation,” he said.

That support can help seriously ill people survive, he said.

Last year, Smeele advocated online for West Foundation’s fundraising drive for the ICU, particularly for family services, and said he was disappointed its opening was delayed.

Health NZ’s operations director for Waitematā Brad Healey said the plan had always been to open the new Waitākere development in stages.

“This includes the intensive care service, which requires a specialist workforce and clinical arrangements to be in place before it can safely open,” he said.

Health NZ’s infrastructure plan does note that the services will open in stages, with the intensive care unit last, however it has previously said the ICU would be open by the end of this year.

An earlier 2024 official document had estimated April 2026.

Healey said the details of how the unit would be run were still being worked out – until that happened an operating budget could not be set and all the staff needed could not be hired.

It was important to get it right for a service where safety was so important, he said.

Health NZ was recruiting only for a clinical lead for the ICU – a one year, part time contract.

Both Allen and Henderson note West Auckland’s roughly 250,000 population was growing fast and more health services were needed besides ICU.