SJGHC Under Construction December 2021

SOUTH EAST MELBOURNE HOSPITALS Redevelopment and construction news

DECEMBER 2021

PERINATAL MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES COMING TO BERWICK IN 2022

While PANDA (Perinatal Anxiety and Depression Australia) has experienced a 50 per cent increase in calls to its national hotline over the past year, the not-for-profit group sees this as a positive step forward and one that indicates that Australian families are no longer trying to manage their mental health concerns alone.

as a new family.”

However, the need for access to mental health services still exists and it’s a demand St John of God Health Care (SJGHC) is actively intending to meet. After careful collaboration with patients, medical practitioners, GPs and local community members, SJGHC established that inpatient perinatal mental health care is severely underserviced in the Casey area and of the utmost importance to the people of Melbourne’s south east.

While it already offers expertise in the treatment of addiction, anxiety and depression at its Pinelodge Clinic in Dandenong, SJGHC is proud to be adding a 12-bed dedicated perinatal mental health unit to its mix of mental health services. The new Langmore Centre will see all of these services offered under the one roof in the new Gibb Street facility which will also include private room accommodation for inpatients, dayprograms for outpatients, a neuro stimulation suite for ECT and TMS treatments, in-house dining facilitates and therapy rooms, including specialised art rooms, internal courtyards, a café, gym and chapel.

“We know there are new parents suffering in this region with limited services,” explains Langmore Centre CEO, Linda Allen. “It’s our responsibility to ensure we can provide the services needed to fill that gap for the community. And from mid-2022, our dedicated Perinatal Mental Health Unit will offer inpatient care for expecting parents, as well as parents and their babies, in private, cosy and welcoming accommodation, where access to specialised mental health clinicians will help with their recovery and assist in learning how to live well together

SJGHC’s former Gibb Street hospital is currently undergoing an extensive $18.2m redevelopment to convert and expand the existing site to meet a broad range of mental health needs.

Lisa Norman, CEO SJG South East Melbourne Hospitals, believes the vision to provide perinatal mental health services is the first of its kind for this area and will enable SJGHC to offer a comprehensive focus on patient needs from head to toe. “As an organisation

we’ve always involved ourselves in the community and responded to community need. This is reflected in the types of services we offer and the social outreach partnerships we form at a local level. The Langmore Centre will complement our broad suite of services, across our various sites in South East Melbourne, allowing us to provide whole-person care for our community from birth through to senior years.”

The statistics speak for themselves. As many as one in five expecting or new mums, and one in 10 expecting or new dads, experience perinatal anxiety or depression in the lead up to becoming a parent and/or during the first 12 months of their baby’s life. Couple that with the fact that 5,321 babies born in the City of Casey during 20182019 — and that’s a lot of new and expecting parents at risk of suffering from a variety of mental health conditions in this region.

While pregnancy and new parenthood is an exciting time, it can also be challenging. And it’s important for expecting and new parents to know that perinatal mental illness is common, but also very treatable. “Our spacious and light-filled private rooms will allow patients to have a safe and homely space to care for their own mental health needs while continuing to bond with their baby,” explains Linda. “In addition to the peaceful and harmonious environment for our patients to experience, our clinicians will be there to help new and expecting parents learn how to set realistic expectations and create achievable goals in their role as a parent. We’re very much looking forward to opening our new facility next year,” admits Linda. “It’s not only an opportunity for us to adequately serve the needs of this community, it’s about heavily investing in an important and crucial public health issue that SJGHC is extremely proud to be supporting.”

Above: Artists impressions - Perinatal mental health unit

Page 2

UNDER CONSTRUCTION | DECEMBER 2021

Construction Timeline: Project commences.

Builders onsite.

July 2021

Fencing, site offices, crane onsite and Perinatal structure started.

Aug 2021

Coming in 2022

Elevated decks/ courtyards, fitout commenced, new loading dock construction

Aug 2021

Practical completion, followed by commissioning

Perinatal wing concrete pour completed, prototype room completion, wall framing in the new neuro suite

Installation of perinatal structural steel, internal framing and roof

Nov 2021

Dec 2021

Grand Opening

MEET THE BUILDER Kane Constructions is a multi-award winning, privately owned construction company. Founded in Melbourne in 1973, Kane has successfully delivered over 2,000 projects across all industry sectors.

Kane operates throughout the east coast of Australia and overseas from offices in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Sunshine Coast and Canberra.

No stranger to industry accolades, Kane was awarded the 2016 and 2019 National Construction Master Builder of the Year, as well as Master Builder of the Year in Victoria in 2016, 2017 and 2019.

Kane’s portfolio of award winning projects include Prahran Square, Cabrini Malvern Gandel Wing, Monash University Chancellery, RACV Cape Schanck Resort, Geelong Library & Heritage Centre, The University of Melbourne Arts West Redevelopment and Phillip Island’s Penguin Parade Visitor Centre Development.

Other notable projects currently under construction include Bendigo Law Courts, Whitehorse Performing Arts Centre, Northcote Aquatic and Recreation Centre, and Wonthaggi Hospital Expansion.

The St John of God Langmore Centre leadership team is working closely with Kane Constructions appointed site team: Jamie Kerr – Kane Project Manager Adam Petts-Jones – Kane Site Manager Callum Parrotte – Kane Contract Administrator Evan Rundell, Project Manager at St John of God Langmore Centre, says, “The site team have been incredible, they are working ahead of schedule and we are on track to open in winter 2022.”

W H E N WA S T E I S N ’ T WA S T E

Preparing the former site of St John of God Berwick Hospital for its new life as the St John of God Langmore Centre has presented an initial hurdle – what to do with 10 tonnes of equipment that is no longer needed.

Many of the items were still functional but were no longer needed or usable at the new St John of God Berwick Hospital and were surplus to requirements for the new facility.

So the redevelopment team, led by St John of God Langmore Centre Clinical Redevelopment Manager Evan Rundell, engaged Environmental Sustainability Coordinator Chris Bourke and International Health Director Anthea Ramos to find some solutions.

Anthea sought funding and help from Rotary – Donations in Kind, to fill and transport a 40ft shipping container filled with about four tonnes of medical items to donate to Timor-Leste’s national hospital including: 32 hospital beds 35 mattresses 50 pillows 40 bedside tables 35 over-bed tables 32 chairs 1 filing cabinet.

“We are really pleased to have been able to find good use for the items in Timor-Leste. The beds, mattresses Page 4

and pillows will provide a great deal of comfort to patients, and the bedside lockers and over-bed tables will make life a little easier as well,” Anthea said.

“We estimated that if the hospital had wanted to purchase these items it would have cost in excess of $250,000.”

Chris engaged social enterprise, PonyUp for Good, to remove e-waste, scrap metal was recycled, and a caregiver garage sale was held to give a second life to other furniture items with money raised donated to charity.

“A veterinary practice even removed the theatre lights and sterilising equipment for reuse,” Chris said.

“We have estimated that we have filled the equivalent of about four 40ft shipping containers with these items which will be reused. This is an incredible result.”

Evan said it was amazing to see everyone bring their skills and networks together, for a common cause.

“It initially felt like a massive task, one that could leave anyone overwhelmed but a great strength of St John of God Health Care is the resources and skills of our workforce. After engaging with Chris, we quickly established our shared goal of trying to donate or reuse as many of these items as possible and minimise our impact on waste.”

UNDER CONSTRUCTION | DECEMBER 2021

WELCOME TO UPEKA KUMARASINGHE: PHILANTHROPY MANAGER Please join us in extending a warm welcome to Upeka Kumarasinghe, who recently joined us in the newly created role of Philanthropy Manager. Upeka is a member of the St John of God Foundation team, working closely with the leadership team and caregivers at Berwick Hospital and Pinelodge Clinic.

Based at St John of God Berwick Hospital, Upeka’s role is to facilitate meaningful philanthropic support, with a focus on fundraising for projects that will enhance patient outcomes through services offered at Langmore Centre.

These special projects include attracting funds to establish a sensory garden for both patients and visitors, a community mental health and wellbeing program, and educational scholarships for caregivers to undertake further professional development in their endeavours to provide exceptional care for our patients.

With a background in bio sciences and public health fundraising and event management, most recently with the Arts Centre Melbourne and Australian Conservation Foundation, Upeka brings significant experience to her new role.

Upeka looks forward to meeting you all, and sharing more information on these fundraising areas of focus in the New Year.

Upeka can be contacted via mobile on: 0499 528 095 or email at Upeka.Kumarasinghe@sjog.org.au.

CONSTRUCTION UPDATE LANGMORE CENTRE

The COVID pandemic has created challenges unforeseen before in hospital redevelopments

Page 6

UNDER CONSTRUCTION | DECEMBER 2021

This year has been an exciting one but also one of hardship for the Langmore redevelopment. With the design documented and a builder on board the hope was to make great progress through the project in the lead up to transitioning from Pinelodge to Langmore. In reality, the COVID pandemic has created challenges unforeseen before in hospital redevelopments which has led to building delays from a restricted 25 per cent workforce as well as a two week government shutdown in response to concerns over the rise of COVID cases throughout the construction industry. Despite this, our builder managed to get its entire workforce double vaccinated with the help of our own Berwick vaccination hub and it was business as usual with everyone back onsite and working hard to catch up. I cannot thank Allison Merrigan and the vaccination team at Berwick for promptly helping out.

COVID has also made it difficult for the redevelopment team with most meetings held via Webex, and minimal face to face contact. For our own caregivers, this has been very difficult as we try and focus on Langmore while COVID activities take up a lot of their own time and effort, as well as keeping Pinelodge operational.

I really must thank the team for their patience as we push towards being operationally ready for our move to Langmore. Our goal is to review our entire operational model to look for ways to make for a better patient experience as well as efficiencies in our service. This isn’t just about picking up Pinelodge and moving this over to Langmore, but reviewing and updating our entire model of care, documenting workflows and process mapping to ultimately produce a greater service to our community and our patients. For those who were involved in the Berwick redevelopment, our journey is following a very similar path on operational readiness as we hold structured meetings and coordinate readiness teams in an effort to make sure no stone is left unturned and our move to Langmore is as seamless as possible.

Page 7

Excitingly we’ve also had an opportunity to review a couple of prototype rooms, which the builder completed early so an extensive inspection could be completed on finishes and fixtures. Some scenario testing to ensure the room is functional and practical was conducted as well. The Pinelodge team found this a very valuable and positive experience, and feedback was provided to the builder revealing any changes as a result of these reviews. Kane Construction, as our builder, has established a great relationship with St John of God Health Care and is willing to work with us on providing a wonderful end-product and environment that suits both patient and caregiver needs.

I’d like to thank everyone for their time and effort so far in assisting with this redevelopment but the journey is far from over. Here’s to a very challenging 2022, and a very exciting time as we move from Pinelodge to Langmore and bring the old Berwick site back to life once more.

Evan Rundell Clinical Redevelopment Manager

UNDER CONSTRUCTION | DECEMBER 2021

For more information on the Lanngmore Centre redevelopment: sjog.org.au/our-locations/st-john-of-god-langmore-centre

UNDER CONSTRUCTION - DECEMBER 2021 St John of God Health Care South East Melbourne Hospitals

info.langmore@sjog.org.au @StJohnofGodLangmoreCentre