Cat’s Ironing Service
Stornoway 703285
Major revamp for Stornoway hospital 28/5/10
The 20-
Two wards are to be cut from the largest hospital in the Western Isles while the number of patient beds is being slashed by 68% under new proposals.
As revealed by Hebrides News last month it is aimed to run the facility with one ward less this year. Presently wards are shut at quiet periods and patients combined into other wards to save cash and pool nurses.
Under long term plans the health care can be delivered better and more efficiently by cutting 40 beds and using five wards plus a day case unit compare to the current seven inpatient wards.
Despite the hospital is a relatively young age it is already outdated due to dramatic changes in medical practices and heath care trends.
The Stornoway hospital has the highest cost of space per local resident and will take £530,000 per year just to maintain in its current state.
Chief operating officer Nigel Hobson told the health board yesterday that the extensive renovations would save £2 million in annual running costs. No figure was given for the refurbishing cost.
Overall treatment spaces would be around 104 by adding 14 comfortable trolleys for day patients, two chemotherapy chairs and two day care beds.
A minor treatment facility located in the casualty department would avoid admitting inpatients.
There would be more single rooms for inpatients and the endoscopy suite would be separate from theatres.
If extra multi-
A new maternity facility would be built in the current Specials Ward and incorporate four main side rooms where a mother would give birth and stay throughout her stay, a birthing pool, plus a day assessment room.
He said only about four maternity beds are now needed instead of the present 10.
More than half the maternity beds lay empty last year while official projections predict the number of babies being born in the Western Isles will fall by 50% by 2024 from the 245 registered in 2004.
Chairman John Angus Mackay believes the falling birth rate is exacerbated by the recession as many couples delay having a family because of the cost of raising children.
He highlighted that the islands faces an alarmingly dwindling population characterised by "an increasing ageing population and a birth rate which is declining quite dramatically."
Mr Mackay suggested this could worsen sooner due to the effect "the economy is having on the population of the Western Isles."
He said there was a need to change the way health services would be delivered in the future: "The status quo is not an option."
Outline project plans and costings will be debated in September.
Mr Mackay added: “"The current Western Isles Hospital building was fifteen years or so in planning and has served the community well in the twenty years since it opened, but much has changed in terms of treatment methods, working practices, and technology in the past decade, and increasingly patients are being referred off island for treatment.”