Leaky pipes at Wellington Hospital

Wellington Hospital is plagued with leaky pipes that need to be repaired, Capital & Coast District Health Board has confirmed.

Now hospital staff are wondering where the cash-strapped DHB is going to find the money to pay for it.On Monday, DHB chief executive Debbie Chin confirmed “pinhole” leaks had been discovered in the plumbing throughout Wellington Regional Hospital. “While the leaks do cause disruption for staff when they are repaired, the care and services our patients receive is not affected by this issue,” she said.

She said the DHB was investigating the root cause of the leaks and was “considering what action we will take to resolve the issue”.The piping in the hospital is less than eight years old, fitted when the new Wellington Regional Hospital was built in 2008.

In January, three of the 18 beds in the hospital’s intensive care unit were unavailable to patients for two weeks, while maintenance was carried out on the leaky water pipes.The hospital called the maintenance “routine”, but hospital staff came forward to say the work was part of a wider problem of “microleaks” in pipes throughout the building. “A consultant doctor said that it was a hospital-wide problem that was going to be investigated, and the cost could be as high as $19m,” one said.

Georgia Choveaux, of the Nurses Organisation, said there were now major concerns for staff about how the DHB was going to pay for the work, and how it would affect staff and patients.

“Unless the Government gives a capital injection, or the contractors who did the initial work have to pay for the fix, we can’t see how there won’t be any impact on patients with customer service, or on staff with short staffing.”

The Ministry of Health said on Tuesday: “This is an operational issue for the district health board to manage. The ministry meets regularly with the DHB and would expect to be kept informed of developments, including any financial impacts.”

Sources say the DHB would now be trying to ascertain who was liable for the leaks and claw back costs for replacing the pipes, one of the largest plumbing networks in New Zealand. One problem is that the company that originally did the work has been struck off. A registered plumber, who did not want to be named, said copper piping should last as long as the building. “Unless it’s faulty, cheap Chinese copper pipe. Alternatively, if they are taking acids or other corrosive type stuff in the water, then the metal is breaking down.” He said normally the supplier would be liable, but in this case the company that did the the installation had folded.

WHO’S RESPONSIBLE?

Fletcher Construction was the lead contractor in the new Wellington Regional Hospital build, which started in 2005 and was completed in December 2008 at a cost of $346 million.It said that, as of Sunday, it had not been contacted by the DHB in regards to the leaky pipes, and it still worked with the hospital. Speaking in January, 3DHB operations manager facilities and engineering Leon Clews said all plumbing carried out at the time of the 2008 building programme was signed off under the building code of that time.  But Wellington City Council said it had not had any formal contact from the DHB in regards to the leaky pipes.

The company that originally installed the pipes, Aquaheat Industries, has been struck off.  When the pipes were installed, it was owned by Australian Hastie Group and its New Zealand holding company Hastie Holdings (NZ) Ltd. Hastie Group folded in 2012, owing more than half a billion dollars, and law firm Slater and Gordon is now taking a class action against the company on behalf of investors.  Whakatane-based Horizon Energy bought the Aquaheat Industries assets from receivers in August 2012 for $5.25m, renaming the business Aquaheat NZ.  Horizon chief executive Ajay Anand told Radio New Zealand that Aquaheat NZ was investigating what responsibility, if any, it had for work done by Aquaheat Industries.

It was willing to work with Wellington Hospital and head contractors “to firstly understand what the issue is and then to determine what remedial action (if any) is required to the plumbing infrastructure”.

JESSY EDWARDS  – Stuff  April 19 2016

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/79068213/capital–coast-district-health-board-confirms-leaky-pipes-at-wellington-hospital