Waipapa’s New Theatres All Up And Running

Canterbury DHB’s new operating theatres in Waipapa, Christchurch Hospital have begun to be used as patients start to receive their surgery in the brand-new state of the art theatres, following a meticulous testing and audit process.

Perioperative Nurse Manager Marie Lory says the DHB’s perioperative teams are really excited to be making use of the new building with all of the new equipment.

“One of the new theatres is a hybrid operating theatre which combines state of the art imaging with operating capability. This means that surgeons can receive real time imaging to allow critical procedures like arterial stents to be inserted with very small incisions dramatically improving recovery times,” Marie says.

Perioperative is the term used to describe all services associated with a person having a surgical procedure, from booking through to pre-operative care, anaesthesia, surgery and recovery.

“While we will continue to use our existing theatre space in Christchurch Hospital, the new theatres in Waipapa will expand our capacity.

“With an ageing population and more operations performed each day, operating theatres are in high demand. The additional theatre capacity means that over time we will be able to bring more of our surgery back in house,” says Marie.

The Orthopaedic and Anaesthesia teams were first to use the new theatres last week, with orthopaedic surgeon Gordon Beadel carrying out the first surgery on a wrist fracture.

Mr Beadel says the first surgery performed in Waipapa is monumental for the Canterbury Health System and the use of the new theatres signals an increase in the DHB’s ability to manage its acute trauma and injury load and perform more surgeries in its own facilities.

“Operating in the Waipapa theatre suite was a very pleasant experience and went very well thanks to a huge amount of work from a number of talented staff. This facility and its brand new theatres are a fantastic resource for our community and those who travel to Canterbury for surgery,” says Mr Beadel.

Tomorrow’s final patient moves will signal the completion of the DHB’s relocation to the new Waipapa facility.

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