New renal services centre signed off | Hawkes Bay News | Local News in Hawkes Bay

The sign-off has been given for Hawke's Bay to consolidate its renal services into one centre in Hastings as part of a $1.7 million project to be completed by 2015.

Hawke's Bay District Health Board voted to approve the centralisation of renal services at its meeting yesterday, assigning $750,000 to begin the first phase of the project.

Demand has forced the DHB to look at better ways to run the service efficiently and rather than expand one of its existing three renal services sites in Hastings, it wanted to consolidate it into one centre.

Services from Renal House on Omahu Rd and another treatment centre on Canning Rd would be moved into Ballantyne House on Orchard Rd, which had 10 treatment chairs and home-care training.

The first part of the development was planned for the next financial year and involved closing the Canning St site, setting up 20 stations and four home haemodialysis stations, central reception and waiting room at Ballantyne House.

Phase two would close the Omahu Rd centre in 2013/14. An out-patient clinic wing would be built at Ballantyne House and in the final year, four more stations would be built at the new centre, providing 24 in total.

Hawke's Bay renal services has reported an increase in the number of patients receiving therapy over the past two years, 16 per cent in 2010 and 7 per cent in 2011, excluding home training and acute inpatient numbers.

Those seeking treatment were significantly younger than the New Zealand average. The dialysis units at Canning Rd and Ballantyne House were at capacity, operating 13 chairs for 52 patients.

Seven half-day clinics were run at Renal House per week. On average, 60 patients per week were seen at the clinic and the services receive 12 to 15 new referrals each month.

The new renal centre was one of seven capital projects the DHB had on its books for the next three to five years, totalling just over $35 million.

DHB chairman Kevin Atkinson said the board had to keep in mind its ability to fund capital projects depended on its financial performance in the coming years.

The key thing to note is the ability to fund these without borrowing money, it is expensive to borrow to fund these projects, he said.

So we need to note that and also we are only able to do this provided we continue to deliver surpluses for the next five years; this year we will have $2 million (surplus) and in the plan we need to deliver $3 million a year to achieve that goal.

The board heard it had made a surplus of $312,000 for the month of October, compared with a deficit reported in September, and it was on target towards the $2 million surplus by the end of the financial year.