| 99 Meeting growing demand in community The new building is situated opposite and just a few metres down Redcliffs’ main road from the existing practice rooms. Redcliffs Medical Centre: Steve Brown Builders T T Kelly Deeks COMMUNITY The new, purpose-built medical centre for Redcliffs in Christchurch, due to open at the end of November, is set to provide the community with a more efficient and contemporary health service, with room to grow to meet future patient demand. The Redcliffs Medical Centre team has well and truly grown out of its current facility, which was built in the early 1980s and is now deemed no longer fit for purpose. The building suffered damage during the Christchurch earthquakes more than a decade ago and although yellow stickered, was still safe to operate from. Today though, it is dated and too small, with rooms which aren’t suitable for multiple purposes. Patient numbers have reduced and then grown again since the quakes. Redcliffs was hit hard with the quakes and much of its population, especially those with hillside homes, was displaced during the rebuild phase. “After the rebuild, many people moved back to the area and we now have a significant number of additional patients and this continues to grow,” says Redcliffs Medical Centre owner and general practitioner Dr Felix Rueppell. “We have recently re-opened our books because we’ve started to do more telehealth appointments which has freed up some space and allowed us to employ one more GP. Our new building is going to give us even more room to grow tp meet existing and future demand.” Redcliffs Medical Centre has also recently switched its practice management system to Indici, which provides patients with a user-friendly portal for easy access to their notes and results and to book their own appointments online. Felix says Indici is a game-changer that is empowering patients to take ownership of their health needs. The timing of this new build has given Felix an advantage over his predecessor at Redcliffs Medical Centre, who at one time had hoped to partner with the local pharmacist and incorporate the pharmacy into the medical centre. “The council wouldn’t allow them to have a pharmacy in the same building, but now things have changed and we are happy to be “After the rebuild, many people moved back to the area and we now have a significant number of additional patients and this continues to grow..” incorporating the pharmacy within our new building.” Redcliffs Medical Centre has maintained a great relationship with the local pharmacist with the two businesses working together for many years, knowing each other well and knowing each other’s patients well too. Felix says the suitability of the new building all starts with having a proper staffroom. The current staffroom doubles as an administration space and a storage room, and workflow is negatively impacted. The unavailability of land in the Redcliffs area means the new centre is being built on a footprint not considerably bigger than the current site, so the new building is going upwards in order to expand from the current 180sqm to 370sqm. Upstairs will contain admin and storage spaces as well as the eagerly anticipated staffroom, while downstairs there will be four GP consultation rooms, a separate surgical procedure room, two dedicated treatment rooms, and a centralised nurses’ station with viewing access to patients who need to be monitored or observed. Steve Brown Builders is making great progress on the build and has put a huge amount of effort into ensuring supply issues would not affect their timeframe. Some time was lost due to builders and subtrades isolating with Covid, but Steve Brown Builders has pulled out all the stops to regain that time and stay on schedule. Roofline Canterbury Ph 349 8439 · www.roofline.co.nz For all your roofing and cladding CANTERBURY LTD Web: Email: Call: 0800 24 24 72 E icient and on time sca olding for Christchurch and Canterbury • Residential Housing & light • Commercial • Repairs • Roof work • Painting
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDc2Mzg=