Analysis: Improved earthquake condition in Hutt Hospital does not provide a blessing

Hut Hospital. Photography: Mark Mitchell

Analytics:

Hutt Hospital’s main building is in better shape than initially thought, but new documents reveal why the chiefs of district health boards aren’t jumping for joy.

DHB board papers released this week show that several parts of the Heretaunga Block have been salvaged from earthquake-prone areas, thanks to a second opinion from engineering firm Silvester Clark.

However, it remains on the cusp of being earthquake-prone, which is a relief when the building in question houses 25 percent of the area’s total hospital bed capacity.

In May, the Hutt Valley and Capital & Coast district health boards announced that Heretaunga Block had been assessed as having a new 15 percent Building Standard (NBS) rating.

Anything less than 34% is prone to earthquakes.

It was decided to vacate the building, which meant finding a new home for patients and services in a system already suffering from significant capacity constraints.

So it was somewhat surprising when it emerged that this draft assessment had not yet been peer-reviewed. The second opinion is crucial in the engineering landscape because it often leads to a different, and sometimes substantial, outcome.

Engineering is not an exact science and insiders in the industry have admitted that it is easy to be conservative, but difficult to be realistic.

In the case of the Heretaunga Block, a second opinion resulted that only one element of the building was earthquake-prone (precast concrete facade panels), rather than several.

In other words, the situation was not as bad as he had initially thought.

But it wasn’t great either. The board’s papers show that the concrete floor diaphragm and moment-resistant frame are only rated 34 percent NBS.

That’s literally 1 percent away from earthquake exposure.

Concrete shear walls aren’t much better at 35 percent, while gravity columns are at 40 percent.

The staircase is 60 percent more convincing.

Specific ratings for all of these items were not available to the public when Lower Hat Mayor Campbell Barry raised concerns about DHB’s intention to “move forward” with its original plans to vacate the building.

Barry said, “What is this?

While the initial engineering report is fundamentally different from the peer-reviewed version, future conditions appear to be somewhat similar.

The reports haven’t actually created one scenario or the other.

DHB is looking into treatment options to strengthen the building with 67 percent of NBS.

The slightly improved ratings, but it’s still low, isn’t anywhere near that target and will still need a major boost as well.

That’s why DHB chiefs still expect the scope, cost, and time of treatment to be similar to initial indications before peer review.

They considered this neither feasible nor cost effective while the building continued to be occupied.

It’s not unreasonable that NBD wants to draw the line at 67 per cent.

Many companies and government departments have a much higher threshold for earthquake ratings than is required by legislation, as has been demonstrated in Wellington countless times.

Furthermore, in a hospital building like this, anything recorded as 34-60 percent of NBS is still classified as earthquake hazard.

DHB has a strong case for raising the entire Heretaunga to a higher level, or rebuilding.

Otherwise, it risks that those parts of the building that are currently at 34 percent of NBS will eventually become vulnerable to earthquakes as legislation and engineering thinking change.

Or worse, they do not perform well in the event of a major earthquake and the hospital cannot be used to its full capacity when it is most needed.

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