The meticulously planned construction of Kaikoura’s new integrated family health centre, Te Hā o Te Ora, has resulted in a seamless transition from the old Kaikoura Hospital to the new state-of-the-art facility.

Arrow’s construction manager, Greg Brown, is visibly proud when talking about the new, purpose-built 3000m2 medical complex. Proud because of the quality of the workmanship his team has delivered, but also particularly satisfied about the smooth move of the hospital services from its historical base to its new home.

“Making sure that the people of Kaikoura – especially the patients and staff – would not be inconvenienced or compromised by the construction and the transition was the key part of this project,” he says.

“Constructing and transferring any organisation or business to a new building is a delicate operation at the best of times, but when people’s lives are literally at stake, there is no margin for error.”

The former Kaikoura Hospital and its rebranded successor, the integrated Family Health Centre, provides full hospital services to the Kaikoura region, including primary, acute, aged and maternity care, as well as radiology services and trauma stabilisation. With the entire Kaikoura region dependent on the hospital, all of these services needed to remain online while the different departments moved into the new facility over the past two months.

“One additional complication in the planning process was that much of the equipment in the old hospital was sourced from other health providers around the country,” explained Mr Brown. “This meant that the decommissioning of this gear needed to line up flawlessly with the same critical services coming online in the new centre.”

The move of all departments was completed by the end of September and the Arrow team is currently focusing on the demolition of the historical Kaikoura Hospital, parts of which are more than 100 years old. “We are also finalising the site works, landscaping and car parking for the new facility and hope to have the entire project completed by the end of January,” says Brown.

That day will mark the culmination of 18 months’ of hard work by the Arrow team, their contractors, the Canterbury District Health Board and all other stakeholders involved in the $13.4 million project. Mr Brown says that the construction demands had several unique challenges to deal with, not the least being the medical requirements, such as lead-lined x-ray rooms and the multitude of electrics and medical gasses needed for each and every bed and room.

Brown says while the remoteness of the site created some challenges for delivering the project, with sub-contractors and materials being pulled in from all over the country, everything has run smoothly because of Canterbury DHB’s support.

“It’s a great working relationship. They’ve understood the challenges we’ve had and have been supportive. We’ve been proactive with them to solve issues, and have really worked together. It’s been a great project to work on.”

The relationship with the contractors was key to completing this project on time as most skills and material had to be sourced from far and wide. This included mechnical contractors from Wellington, steel fabricators from Christchurch, and electrical contractors from Nelson and Blenheim, while most of the carpentry was done by local contractors.

Despite all these complexities, says Brown, the project has been extremely rewarding because of the overwhelming support and interest from the community and CDHB. “It’s been a long time coming for the community so everyone’s been right behind it from the start. They were all itching to get in.”

The community support for the project was clear when the people of Kaikoura managed to raise $3.4 million themselves on top of the Government contribution of $10 million for the new health facility.

Fundraising was a big part of the project with many local contractors pitching in to help. Arrow’s team also got involved in the fundraising efforts, selling an old garage used as a site office and donating the $2,500 they made to the fund.

“This has been a real team effort,” says Brown. “And everyone involved can be proud of what we have provided for the people of Kaikoura.”