🏥🚑🧑⚕️ Not long now 'til the new east wing building at Taranaki Base Hospital opens. The building has been blessed and named (Te Rau Mātāpuna o Taranaki), and staff are busy fitting out the new departments, getting it ready to welcome patients.
This once-in-a-generation project is bringing world-class healthcare infrastructure right here to Taranaki! Here are some of the most fascinating facts about our region's massive new facility:
🌿 A National First for Sustainability
1. Setting the Standard: It's the first public health building in New Zealand to secure a 5 Green Star design rating.
2. Eco-Friendly: The building is the first major NZ hospital to use an all-electric systems design philosophy, targeting a 50% reduction in energy use and a massive 70% drop in operational greenhouse gas emissions compared to traditional hospital buildings.
🏗️ Earth-Resilient Engineering
3. Built to Shake It Off: Designed to keep running even after a major seismic event, the six-storey structure sits on 103 state-of-the-art base isolators (like the ones on display at Te Papa in Wellington, a unique Kiwi innovation).
4. Deep Foundations: The ground prep required excavating 44,000 cubic metres of soil and driving hundreds of specialised piles into the complex "Taranaki ash" soil to ensure ultimate stability.
🚁 Faster Care from the Sky
5. Rooftop Helipad: No more ground-level transfers across the campus! The new rooftop helipad allows patients arriving by air rescue to go directly into acute care areas via dedicated express lifts.
6. Fun Construction Fact: The lightweight aluminium helipad actually arrived on-site completely flat-packed and was expertly assembled by a specialist team over eight weeks.
👥 Massive Scale & Expanded Capacity
7. More Room to Heal: The 20,000 square metre building provides 151 patient space, which is 55 more than the old facility's capacity.
8. All the Essentials Under One Roof: It brings together the new Emergency Department (ED), Intensive Care Unit (ICU), Maternity & primary birthing, Neonatal, Radiology, and Laboratories.
9. A Million Hours of Hard Work: Construction hit a major milestone with over 1 million work hours logged on site, peaking at up to 300 workers on-site every day.
🌊 Woven with Local Culture
10. Maunga to Moana: Developed alongside Te Kāhui Tikanga and mana whenua, the building’s architectural narrative symbolises a healing journey from the mountain to the sea.
11. Stunning Design Elements: Keep an eye out for integrated local artworks and a striking, large circular skylight illuminating the main entrance atrium.
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12. Bonus fact from Taranaki Health Foundation: Almost $10 million has been donated by local businesses, community groups and individuals to the Taranaki Health Foundation to provide enhancements that elevate patient wellbeing beyond the standard level of care. Because Taranaki doesn’t deserve standard. Taranaki deserves the best. A huge thank you to all our donors!
