News

Works starts on MBH Intensive Care Unit expansion

Mon, 21 May 2018 05:37:00

Work has started on a $2.3-million expansion of Mildura Base Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit (ICU).

Contractors are now on-site and construction is underway on work to increase the capacity of the hospital’s ICU and High Dependency Unit, funded by the Victorian Government’s Regional Health Infrastructure Fund.
MBH chief executive officer Julia Morgan said it was exciting to have the planning finished, contracts let and to have turned the first sod on the development.
“Our Intensive Care Unit and High Dependency Unit is currently five beds, but it will be expanded to eight beds under this project,” Ms Morgan said.
“This is one of the major initiatives we have really been pushing for, because ICU is one of the areas within the hospital that is often full,” she said.
Ms Morgan said the expansion would mean fewer of the hospital’s most unwell patients would need to be transferred away from Mildura.
“Our job as a hospital is to provide the right level of care for our patients in the right place, whether that is in the wards, in the High Dependency Unit, or in Intensive Care,” she said.
“This will improve our capacity to do that and for patients that means getting the best of care but staying close to the support of home and family.”
Ms Morgan said the ICU expansion was in addition to a half million-dollar upgrade announced last year to expand the MBH Emergency Department Short Stay Unit.
“The expansion of the SSU and the ICU will provide us with an additional five inpatient beds altogether and will have a significant impact on our ability to meet the health care needs of the community,” she said.
The ICU expansion is one of two successful major MBH projects under the Regional Health Infrastructure funding round last year – the other being another $2.1 million dollars to refurbish the MBH Mental Health Unit.
“That’s in addition to achieving funding for construction of our new mental health Prevention and Recovery Centre, which opened last year,” Ms Morgan said.
“It also comes after a $15 million investment in Obstetrics, Mental Health, the Emergency Department and staff accommodation finished in 2015,” she said.
“Our executive team is tenacious in advocating at every opportunity for the health needs of the Mildura community, and we are strongly supported in those efforts by the hospital operator Ramsay Health Care.
“Our approach is always to work with staff, our Community Advisory Board and our partners to consistently articulate our priorities to Government, and it’s an approach that is successful.
“These are welcome and important investments to meet the future needs of a growing community and we will continue to argue Mildura’s case at every opportunity.”