Planning is key to successful future

(Aotea News, June 2011)

Dr Karen Wood
Aotea Pathology
Chief Executive

Welcome to our first Aotea News for 2011. The start of the year has been a very positive time for us but sadly tempered by the earthquakes in Christchurch and Japan.

We were very pleased to confirm in late December our agreement for a $75 million, three-year extension to our contract with the District Health Boards.

The extension gives us a lot more certainty for the future and allows us to plan ahead and invest in services and infrastructure to further improve the services we offer you.

One project already in place is a review of all our collection rooms with a view to upgrading those that need it.

It is important that our patients are comfortable and relaxed when they come to visit us and a pleasant collection room goes a long way to helping that.

Our rooms in Petone have been the first to get a spruce-up and I’m sure our patients there will be happy with the improvements.

Another project currently under way is a review, in conjunction with Wellington Hospital, of how we carry out thrombophilia testing.

You will have received information on the new request protocol which starts at the end of May and we welcome your feedback.

Our thoughts recently have been with friends, family and professional peers in Christchurch as they work
to get their everyday lives and businesses back on track — the ongoing aftershocks cannot be easy. After the February quake, the two community laboratories in the Christchurch central business district were unable to be occupied. We offered support and assistance to both labs to help get them up and running again.

The quakes also focused our minds, here at Aotea, on our own emergency planning. Following a natural disaster, we will need to be able to offer essential services, even under adverse conditions. Doctors will be faced with diseases and injuries that they might not normally see in their routine work -- for example, from the effects of contamination and people in close living arrangements.

Our ongoing ability to support them will be crucial. The Japanese earthquake has given us clear insights into how we will need to work.

Ryuki Kassai, a Japanese medical professor in a quake affected area, writing after the quake, said that a key lesson he saw was a need to get information networks running as quickly as possible for good collaboration with officials, police and other medical staff.

While our heartfelt sympathy goes out to the many people in Japan living with great stress and uncertainty right now, we are also absorbing all the medical information we can from their experiences.

Following any major emergency in Wellington, we want to have systems in place that allow us to continue providing pathology services to support essential primary care throughout the region.