New 12 million pound Renal Unit
University Hospital of North Staffordshire has started to demolish buildings to make way for a 12 million pound centre for kidney patients. The Renal Unit, which will relocate in November next year, will be the final clinical service to leave the Royal Infirmary. The new building will be located next to the present Hartshill Orthopaedic and Surgical Unit at the City General.
Dr Gavin Russell, medical director for strategic planning and transformation and a senior renal physician, is delighted work has started. He said: “When I arrived in 1987 I was told the portable buildings would be gone in five years and although they have served us well, I will shed no tears 25 years on as the last patients leave next year to move to the state-of-the-art centre.”
The self-contained department will have a 31-bed ward on the ground floor, a dialysis unit on the first floor, an outpatients' department and research, training and seminar rooms. Half of the beds will be in single en-suite rooms, with the rest in four-bed bays. Upstairs there will be a dialysis centre with 46 stations - six more than at present. It will include six training stations where patients who can dialyse themselves at home can benefit from more dedicated teaching of the techniques without being spread through the unit as at present.
Dr Russell said: "At least none of my fellow consultants can say I have been putting my own specialty first. it's fantastic that renal care will finally be in facilities it deserves and I'm sure the community will feel proud of this unit and the entire new hospital."