BOPDHB History Tauranga Hospital Centennial Book | Page 14

Did You Know?
In the year 2000, the Bay of Plenty District Health Board
did 155 hip replacements and 110 knee replacements. In
2013, these numbers increased to 391 hip and 333 knee
replacements. This reflects a worldwide increase in the
number of joint replacements done, especially increasing
numbers of knee replacements.

Patients outside Tauranga Hospital, circa 1930.

Did You Know?
In the 1970’s and early 1980’s, when a patient came into
hospital to have a torn cartilage (meniscus) taken out of
their knee, at surgery the knee was opened up, the cartilage
removed, and the patient spent three to four days in hospital.
Today, the same operation is done through an arthroscope
(a telescope showing the inside of the knee) and the patient
can go home within a few hours.
Also in the 1970’s, when a patient had surgery for Carpal
Tunnel Syndrome (tingling in the hand caused by pressure
on a nerve in the wrist) they had general anaesthetic for the
surgery and they spent two to three days in hospital. Today
it is done under local anaesthetic and they spend one to two
hours in hospital.

Total Knee and Hip Joint Replacement

Mr Richard Keddell, Orthopaedic
Department Clinical Director
As late as the early 1980’s anyone who broke their leg
would be in hospital in traction for six to eight weeks;
with some in hospital for three months. Today we put a
steel rod in the leg and the patient goes home within a
few days ….that’s a dramatic change,” says Richard.
Richard says putting rods in to support broken thigh
bones in particular, has been around since WW2 but
the way it’s done has dramatically changed.
“In the early 1980’s, we could put a rod in, but it was
only in the mid 1980’s that we had x-ray machines that
changed how we do the operation. To fix a broken hip
in an elderly person, we would make an incision, put a
wire in across the break, take an x-ray and wait for the
radiographer to develop the film. We’d look at the x-ray
and say, ‘no that’s not quite the right position’. Then
we’d put the wire in again and take another film and
repeat the process until it was right,” he says.
“In about 1985 we got an Image Intensifier which
allowed us to see what we were doing on a TV screen
in the operating theatre. Technology has just got better
and better. The equipment we use such as radiography
and radiology services, has allowed us to do a lot more
things. The knowledge just expands,” says Richard.

Hip joint before and after replacement.

“It is very rare that anyone is lying around in traction in the hospital
anymore!”

Seven Decades of Hospital Care
by Rex E Wright-St Clair

Knee joint before and after replacement.

8

A specialist orthopaedic service was instituted at Tauranga
Hospital in June 1953 with the part time appointment of
Henry Britton Coates-Milson from 1 October 1953.
Dr Coates-Milson spent the rest of his life in Tauranga and was
a brilliant orthopaedic surgeon; unconventional and inventive.