BendigoWeekly www.bendigoweekly.com.au
issue 995 Friday, november 25, 2016
good move Hospital gears up for shift
By Sharon kemp
CENTRAL Victoria’s largest and most expensive development project is technically complete and ahead of schedule, but Bendigo Health says it will use the next month to bed down the move across the road into the new $630 million Bendigo hospital. Patients and their families will get to use the world-class hospital for the first time on January 24, which is move day. Until then, Bendigo Health will install medical equipment, complete landscaping and move in new furniture. It will also train staff members at the new site, including how to work safely in the new surroundings and with new equipment. Training will also take place around the logistics of move day, when all patients will be moved. Health minister Jill Hennessy said the government was putting patients in Bendigo first. “We are ensuring they
NEW VIEW: Jacinta Allan and Jill Hennessy take the tour of the Bendigo Hospital. Photo: ANDREW PERRYMAN
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Mines aim for change – Page 3
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can access the very best health care when they need it, close to home. This world class new hospital will do just that,” she said. Bendigo Health board chairman Bob Cameron said critical connections between departments, such as between emergen-
We are ensuring (patients) can access the very best cy and surgical, ruled out staged occupancy. “One thing is connected to the other, which is connected to the other,” he said. Technical completion, which occurred this week, means that the hospital is no longer a building site and it precedes the handing over of keys which
will be delivered by the construction consortia Exemplar Health to the Victorian government, and then to Bendigo Health. Asked what was planned for that day, Mr Cameron said he hadn’t thought that far ahead. Member for Bendigo East Jacinta Allan said the hospital will change the lives of many people. “I’m proud to have been part of its journey from the start, 10 years ago, with our promise of master planning, then designing and funding it, and now delivering it,” she said. For Exemplar, particularly its contractors, it means they will be paid, earlier than expected if the keys are handed over ahead of schedule. Federal and state government funding for the new Bendigo hospital was committed in 2010. Construction got under way in 2013 and there have been no significant challenges to progress.
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