West Coast District Health Board
Te Poari Hauora a Rohe o Tai Poutini
Corporate Office
Telephone 03 769-7400
High Street, Greymouth 7840
Fax 03 769-7791
23 March 2017
Antony Andrews
Email: [FYI request #5349 email];
Dear Mr Andrews
Official Information Act request WCDHB 8907
We refer to your email of 9 February 2017, seeking information under section 12 of the Official
Information Act (1982) as follows:
Could you please provide the total number of hospital beds from 2006 to 2016 at West Coast District
Health Board? Yearly count will be great. Please note that the bed volume is the count of physical
bed capacity (i.e. bed spaces). The count includes beds, roller beds, lazy-boys etc. The data does not
include patient occupancy volumes.
Response
Please refer to
Table one (below) for our bed space numbers as they have been recorded from internal
stocktakes at various fixed time points of actual physical beds and bed spaces.
Please note that hospital bed spaces may be present as part of the fixture of a ward layout, but with
no beds physically located within them at times.
Please also note that rather than being a fixed number of bed spaces in all cases, some physical beds
and bed spaces in our wards are used flexibly and variously repurposed within our hospitals to meet
the changes of seasonal demand over the years (for example, with medical conditions peaking during
winter months but relatively lighter during summer periods).
As such, the numbers of resourced beds, physical beds, and bed spaces have all varied from time to
time in any given year and the data below may therefore not match Ministry of Health annual
stocktakes of bed numbers at the particular time that these are surveyed. Resourced beds, physical
beds, and physical bed spaces, are three distinct sets of separate information. We have provided
actual physical bed spaces as per your request.
Table one:
WCDHB Hospital / Health Service
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
Grey Base Hospital Total Bed Spaces
(excluding recovery beds in our main
142
124
124
124
122
operating theatre)
Buller Health Total Bed Spaces
32
32
32
32
32
(excluding rest home beds)
Reefton Health Total Bed Spaces
10
10
10
10
10
(excluding rest home beds)
Total Hospital Beds for West Coast
184
166
166
166
164
DHB
The decrease in available bed spaces in Grey Base Hospital between 2012 and 2013 followed in the
aftermath of a comprehensive seismic risk assessment undertaken in 2012 in the wake of the
Christchurch earthquakes, that found part of two ward spaces at the Hospital were significantly
earthquake prone structures, so were shut down immediately for safety.
We do not hold any definitive record on the numbers of physical beds or bed spaces that were in place
prior to 2012. We are therefore declining providing data for the period 2006 - 2011 under section
18(g) of the Official Information Act; i.e.: that the information requested is not held by West Coast
DHB.
I trust that this satisfies your interest in this matter.
Yours sincerely
Carolyn Gullery
General Manager
Planning, Funding & Decision Support.