Te Whatu Ora – Health New Zealand Waitematā
Promise: best care for everyone
Values: everyone matters; with compassion; better, best, brilliant; connected
Te Whatu Ora – Health New Zealand Waitematā provides health services to approximately 650,000 residents of the North Shore, Waitakere, and Rodney areas. It has the largest population of any district health area.
Waitakere Hospital is located on Lincoln Road in Henderson, seated at the foot of the magnificent Waitakere Ranges and close to the black volcanic sand beaches of the west coast.
In 1945 the original Waitakere Maternity Hospital was a small building in Te Atatu. The idea of a new hospital was raised that year, but it was another ten years before a site was found for the ‘North Western Hospital’.
In the ensuing years a geriatric block was built and the site also became a base for community home health and support services, child disability services and for health services to school children - public health nurses, hearing and vision testing, school dental services.
In the year 2000 then-Prime Minister Helen Clark announced funding for a $60 million redevelopment of Waitakere Hospital, and in 2005 the ‘new’ Waitakere Hospital as it exists today was opened, providing acute inpatient services for the populations of Waitakere and Kaipara Ki-Raro. It features the following facilities:
- medical beds
- coronary care beds
- an Emergency Department
- a Surgical Unit with operating theatres (1 being a dedicated obstetric theatre) and 2 endoscopy procedure rooms
- elective surgical and endoscopy services are provided from the Surgical Unit
- a Maternity Unit
- acute gynaecology, elective gynaecology, colposcopy, and some urogynaecology services
- a Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU)
- a Paediatric Service
- an Allied Health Team of: social workers, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech language therapists. Dietitians also work on the wards but are part of Nutrition Services.
There are two wards specialising in the assessment, treatment, and rehabilitation of patients over 65 years of age. Specialist outpatient clinics are also provided for older adults.
There is a Mental Health inpatient unit also based on the Waitakere Hospital site, with the West Mental Health community services based nearby in Paramount Drive.