The Health Minister is pleading for patience when it comes to hospital funding.  

Hospitals will receive more than half a billion dollars in extra funding from the Government. 

This will add 75 standard inpatient beds and convert 355 beds into isolation or negative pressure environments.  

Andrew Little says hospitals have been looking at their infrastructure and identifying which areas could be converted.  

He says told Mike Yardley we can't expect it to happen overnight. 

“It’ll take six months or so for this all to be put in place, but it does mean that hospitals treating Covid patients won’t have the care for non-Covid patients disrupted in the way we’ve seen in the last few outbreaks.” 

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