Presented by Robert Clark MP		www.robertclark.net

Stage One of Royal Melbourne upgrade completed

Stage One of the Royal Melbourne Hospital’s $51-million redevelopment has been completed.

Stage One of the Royal Melbourne’s three-stage upgrade includes:

• A fit-out of two operating theatres, bringing the total number to 10.
• A peri-operative unit for pre-admission of day-surgery and overnight patients.
• Relocation of the sterile-supply department to the operating-theatre complex.
• Expansion and refurbishment of nuclear medicine, medical illustration and records units.
• Upgrading of infrastructure and foundation work for the Stage Two front-entry building.

Stage Two improvements — due for completion by mid-2000 — will include:

• $14.7 million for a new, three-floor front-entry building with a 22-bed intensive-care unit and 60-bed neurosciences ward with neurology, stroke and neurosurgery services.
• $2.5 million for a helipad atop the main building to support specialist trauma services.

Announcing the completion of the $7.5 million redevelopment, Health and Aged Care Minister Rob Knowles said that soon the Victorian Government’s investment in new and upgraded facilities would top $180 million throughout the North Western Health Care Network.

This includes redevelopment of Sunshine Hospital ($49 million), Broadmeadows Health Service’s new Integrated Care Centre ($36 million), Williamstown Hospital ($13 million) and Footscray’s Western Hospital ($6 million).

(News Release, Office of the Minister for Health and Aged Care, June 11, 1999)