The 'topping off' ceremony at Rotorua Hospital is complete on the facilities' new inpatient building.
The main contractor for the three-level inpatient building, Mainzeal Property & Construction Limited, marked the milestone on Monday with a cement trowelling on the top area of the three level building.

Rotorua Mayor Kevin Winters and Lakes DHB Board Chair Stewart Edward placing their handprints in the concrete.

Mainzeal invited a group of key consultants and sub contractors, and the Lakes DHB guests included board members, members of the Pukeroa Oruawhata Trust, Rotorua's Mayor Kevin Winters and Rotorua MP Todd McCLay.
The cement trowelling work for the ceremony was jointly carried out by Lakes DHB Chair Stewart Edward and the Chair of Pukeroa Oruawhata Trust, Malcolm Short, signifying the relationship between the DHB and Pukeroa Oruawhata, the business arm of Ngati Whakaue, who gifted the Pukeroa Hill land for health services under the Fenton Agreement.
Overall project director for the Lakes DHB development, Nick Saville-Wood says the ceremony is a good opportunity to mark progress to date.
Excavation of the site of the new building began late in October 2009. Work is underway to complete the floors of the inpatient building, with staff beginning to occupy parts of the building from autumn 2011.
The Mainzeal project manager, Andrew Whitehead, says Mainzeal is delighted to be involved with Lakes DHB on this exciting and challenging project, which will give long-term benefit to Rotorua and the surrounding community.
"The successful completion of the main structure marks a significant milestone in the overall construction project and gives us the opportunity to celebrate this event with Lakes DHB and its partners," says Andrew.
He says this week's ceremony is a significant event in a journey of some seven years towards the redevelopment of Lakes DHB hospital buildings.
The major push for redevelopment of hospital facilities began in 2004 with the drawing up of a Clinical Services Plan to guide the site development phase for upgrading facilities at Taupo and Rotorua Hospital sites.
This led to the setting up of the Lakes Health Services Improvement Project with the business case for $89 million across both Rotorua and Taupo approved and signed off in 2008.
Alongside the construction of the new building, work has seen the upgrade of the facilities infrastructure including power, air conditioning, medical gases and water systems in the existing Clinical Services Building. Once the new inpatient building is occupied, work will move on to extensive upgrading of the existing CSB, including the redevelopment of the main operating theatres on level two.
Lakes DHB Chair Stewart Edward says the road to getting the redevelopment has been a lengthy one and has not always been easy but the board has remained adamant that redevelopment of the hospitals had to happen.
"I really want to acknowledge the amount of effort by a range of people as we have worked through the redevelopment.
"The 'topping off' ceremony is a very strong cause for celebration," says Stewart.
The Rotorua redevelopment is expected to be completed in 2012.

The new inpatient building:

* The foot print of the new inpatients building is 80m x30m approximately, or roughly the size of the playing surface of a rugby field.
* There is 396,570kg of reinforcing steel in this project.
* The building contains 3836 cubic metres or 7672 tonnes of concrete.
* There are 88km, collectively, of electrical and data cable.
* There are 10km of air conditioning ducting.
* There are 627sqm of external glazing to windows.
* Some 69km of timber framing is used for walls and partitions.
* In excess of 50km of pipe work for plumbing and drainage, air conditioning, medical gases, fire protection, etc.