A "COMMUNITY event" is how the office of NSW Mental Health Minister Kevin Humphries describes Friday's official opening in Dubbo of a facility that with open arms will catch Western NSW residents either before they need hospitalisation, or after they are discharged.
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Members of the public are invited to attend the opening ceremony of the new $7.2 million Dubbo Mental Health Rehabilitation and Recovery Centre to learn more about it.
Mr Humphries, who turned the first sod in the construction of the building in December 2011, will front up to officially open doors already unlocked.
The minister's office yesterday confirmed the completed facility was no longer empty.
"It has started to receive patients, but as it has only just opened it is not yet at full operational capacity," the minister's office revealed.
Patients voluntarily enter the facility operated by Neami Limited, a non-government organisation that won a three-year contract to run it in a tender process.
Throughout its construction, the new building on the grounds of Dubbo Base Hospital has been promoted as filling the sub-acute gap in the continuum of mental health services in the region.
"This new state-of-the-art facility will allow people aged 18 and over with mental health conditions and who have been discharged from hospital to undergo further rehabilitation and treatment services, and connect with the community and their family before going home," Mr Humphries said.
"It is also designed to help adults from the community requiring a short period of early intervention in a rehabilitation environment in order to prevent hospitalisation."
When he came to Dubbo for the first-sod turning, the minister reported that many patients leaving the acute unit at Dubbo Base Hospital would represent within 28 days, making a facility that supported their return to the community vitally important and desirable.
The design and fit-out of the new 10-bed centre aims to make patients feel at home.
A "domestic environment" including kitchen and laundry areas encourages them to develop life skills including cooking, washing and management of medication.
The federal government has paid for the centre under the Council of Australian Governments New Sub Acute Beds Guarantee.
Neami is also managing the newly-built $6.6 million sub-acute mental health facility in Broken Hill.
Friday's opening will be attended by a yet-to-be-named representative of the federal government, Dubbo MP Troy Grant and Dr Russell Roberts, the Western NSW Local Health District's director of Mental Health, Drug and Alcohol Services.
It will get under way at 11am.
