Tōtara Haumaru was opened on Sunday. Photo: Rowan Quinn / RNZ
A new surgical building has been opened at Auckland's North Shore Hospital after delays caused by staff shortages.
However, its opening means effectively no new patients will get surgery, as theatres in other parts of the hospital will have to close so it can be staffed.
The $317 million Tōtara Haumaru was officially opened by Minister of Health Shane Reti on Sunday.
The four-storey building has 150 beds, surgical theatres and four endoscopy suites.
It is opening in stages, with 2000 elective procedures planned for the first year.
North Shore Hospital director of operations Brad Healey said once it was fully operational, the facility would take on work from other parts of Auckland and Northland.
That would help to reduce patient wait lists, he said.
"The separation of planned care from acute care will also give us more certainty that when we book patients, they are less likely to have their treatment deferred because of acute demand."
The population of Auckland and Northland was expected to rise by almost a quarter in the next 20 years, with the number of people aged over 75 doubling, Healey said.
Eventually, 8000 surgeries and 7500 endoscopy procedures could be performed within the complex each year, he said.
"In the short to medium term, we will be moving some existing services into the new facility and carrying out surgical cases that would otherwise have been outsourced to private providers.
"A greater mix of cases can be carried out at the more modern facility, which means some patients whose care is considered too complex to outsource will be able to have their surgery at Tōtara Haumaru."
The project has been plagued by staff shortages and was originally supposed to open in December 2023.
Sarah Dalton from the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists said she was not confident of enough staff being recruited for the facility to run at full steam.
She said more needed to be done to make the health sector an attractive career option.
Labour's health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said the facility would mostly take staff from other postings and be doing surgeries already planned to go ahead in other hospitals.
"Minister of Health Shane Reti was desperate to turn the lights on following mounting pressure over this vital facility sitting empty, so Health New Zealand have moved surgeries from existing hospitals to the new hospital, to give the appearance that it is up and running."
Reti needed to end the Health New Zealand hiring freeze and "enable full recruitment so that the facility can provide the additional 15,000 procedures as it was designed", Verrall said.