Goulburn Valley Health has unveiled its new emergency department, which will be its frontline service while the former ED gets an overhaul as part of the health service’s $229.3 million redevelopment.
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The revamp might be a 12-month project, but GV Health chief executive Matt Sharp said when completed and linked to the new ED, the hospital would see its emergency treatment bays double to 36.
The original ED entrance, triage desk, waiting room and ambulance bay closed on Thursday.
Mr Sharp said the new department had its own entrance, adding that the real win for staff and patients would be the secondary launch of the whole emergency complex.
“In the meantime we have met — and negotiated with — the relevant Victorian Government departments and Lendlease to retain use of parts of the old department for the next few months,” Mr Sharp said.
“And I am thrilled for our staff and community to now have immediate access to the new department – it is a fantastic environment to provide services and care for patients.
“For GV Health to retain access to the former department provides more clinical areas to provide emergency services as well as support our response to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Mr Sharp said while there would be some additional areas for treatment, it was expected this would change as sections of the refurbishment became available and/or unavailable.
But he urged the community to recognise the expansion meant more people would be able to get “high-quality and safe emergency care faster and closer to home”.
GV Health's executive director of capital projects, infrastructure and support services Jacinta Russell said building works had continued throughout COVID-19 to ensure the new and expanded facilities would still be delivered on time.
“It has been a challenging time for global health services as well as GV Health and while managing and preparing for COVID-19, half the health service has also been under construction,” Ms Russell said.
“Completion of the new emergency department is one of the major milestones in this redevelopment and we look forward to the refurbishment of the former department being completed towards the end of 2021.”
The new emergency complex has three resuscitation bays, two isolation rooms with ensuites, a bariatric room, eight open cubicles, a mental health consultation room, a forensic consultation room, two triage rooms, an ambulance triage area, an interview room and a waiting room.
To quickly increase capacity and meet the health needs of the community during COVID-19, necessary adjustments have been made to the redevelopment program, however the project's scope and estimated overall completion date of late next year remains unchanged.
Mr Sharp said the next major milestone for the redevelopment would be completion of the new five-storey inpatient unit building, which includes a new mortuary, kitchen, new theatres, new critical care unit and an increase of 32 new inpatient beds making up the new medical and surgical units.
He also acknowledged the efforts of Lendlease and its sub-contractors for their support in fast-tracking the project to benefit all the communities across the Hume region.
There were hopes the ED would open in April, but this was pushed back because of "juggling" things around for COVID-19.
“We had the opportunity to take the time to do some redesigning of the former ED,” Mr Sharp said.
“The original plans were for the former emergency department to be all given to Lendlease to refurbish at the one time, but the reason it took a little bit longer was we were working with Lendlease and the government to be able to have access to part of the emergency department moving forward.
“That's pretty important for us because it gives us additional space now to care and treat patients that we wouldn't have had available to us."
GV Health could not provide the cost of the ED development.
