As part of planning for the massive task of commissioning the Wonthaggi Hospital Expansion (WHE) and opening the new building, Bass Coast Health (BCH) staff, volunteers and Community Advisory Committee members gathered for a full day workshop last week. They discussed preparations already underway and actions required to successfully transition into the new building.
The commissioning process is being overseen by BCH Executive Director Louise Sparkes and Service Development Director Kerryn Griffiths. BCH is also very grateful to be once again receiving support from leading tertiary service, Alfred Health, to plan for the move into the $115 million WHE project in December.
Alfred Health are drawing on their extensive experience in commissioning previous healthcare projects and according to Lou, “We are fortunate to be able to draw on two really experienced leaders in Alastair Haigh and Carly Davis from the Alfred, to gain greater insight into the challenges we may face. We are very keen to ensure the opening of the new building is as smooth as possible for our staff, patients and in turn, our community.”
Workshop participants were able to work through queries, develop ideas for simulation and training, and put the flesh on the bones of our Operational Commissioning plan. This plan is essential to deliver a safe, well-articulated service to the community.
The three storey WHE is a spectacular building, with the ground level as the main entrance to the health service, with the Emergency Department, Short Stay Unit, Front of House (reception) and Radiology. Level One will be Theatres and recovery, Day of surgery admissions, elective surgery admission unit, and Central Sterilising and Supply Department. Level Two will be the Surgical Ward, where patients will undergo and recover after surgery.
The Emergency Department will initially offer nine cubicles over summer and then reduce back to six cubicles in February post the summer holiday rush, in line with usual practice for that time of year at BCH.
The 32-bed Surgical Ward will cater for surgical and medical patients for the first few months whilst the older medical ward undergoes renovations.
The new Operating Suite will initially run two theatres with a procedure room to open in late 2023.
As soon as the Emergency Department moves from the standalone building of Armitage House into the Emergency Department, Sub-Acute services, which provide rehabilitation and palliative care, will return to Armitage House – a purpose for which the building was recently renovated. There are also plans for the renovation of the former Emergency Department to become our new Pharmacy and for the current Operating Suite to become a centre for women’s health, including new birthing suites and a special care nursery.
It is anticipated that the builders will handover the building on 9 November 2022 and BCH will commence extensive testing, fit out and cleaning. As soon as the furniture and fittings are in and testing of all the environments has occurred (somewhere in the middle of December), Radiology, Emergency Department and the Acute Ward will move into the new building. These services will be given time to settle in and then the move of our theatres and Perioperative services will take place in January.
The current $115m WHE project is stage one of a proposed four-stage redevelopment of the Wonthaggi site to bring BCH into full capacity as a sub-regional health service.
Stages two and three include the development of a much-expanded outpatient and day treatment area including a new Dialysis area, a contemporary medical ward that connects to the new surgical ward as part of the WHE, and a new sub-acute ward.
Stage four is the redevelopment of residential aged care facilities.
Stages two, three and four are still subject to funding commitments.
According to BCH CEO Jan Child, the new WHE new building has been future-proofed to cope with the increasing demand predicted over the next 10-15 years. The master plan for infrastructure is supported by a strong Clinical Services Plan that outlines our safe and steady growth over the next five years so that we can become a fully fledged sub-regional health service.
“We will maximise use of this new facility to make sure our staff are working in the best possible care environment, but this does not mean that the whole building will be occupied by new services,” Ms Child said.
“Some of our services have been working from other sites in anticipation of this new site, and we can only grow services at a rate that ensures we maintain a very strong eye on safety and quality. It is never safe to grow too quickly and importantly, we need to grow services in line with our workforce strategy.
“National and state-wide workforce shortfalls will determine which services grow in the first instance and which ones wait until workforce is in a better position. We will expand our Cancer, Surgery and Women’s Health services in the first instance because this aligns with workforce availability; services such as Paediatrics and High Dependency will follow later once we know we have the workforce to match the demand.
“I understand that everyone might expect that we will be opening everything from day one but growing a health service requires significant planning to make sure we have a highly skilled workforce and a facility that is well equipped. As always, we ask our community to be patient as we grow our services.
“We have almost doubled our services over the last five years and will go close to doing the same over the next five years. I know people want everything to be in place yesterday but we must do things in a planned way to keep our patients safe.”
A series of community forums will be held over the coming months to provide the community with information about current and new services. These will be advertised over the coming weeks but if people want further information, please email publicrelations@basscoasthealth.org.au