ACTION heroes have the redevelopment of Dubbo Hospital moving ahead in leaps and bounds.
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Construction management contractor Fugen Constructions has made a super effort this month to fast-track early works that were grounded after predecessor National Buildplan Group floundered financially.
Yesterday it was not shifting back a gear despite major progress.
A crane was ready to get stuck into the old boiler house that once sat alongside a 32-metre chimney stack on the eastern side of the hospital campus.
Abandoned for months after National Buildplan Group went into voluntary administration, the asbestos-ridden chimney stack came to symbolise redevelopment inertia.
Yesterday it had gone, completely.
It remains to be seen if the demolition of the chimney stack and boiler house requires the six weeks allocated to get the job done.
Clearing of the old infrastructure is occurring alongside the emergence of three new buildings that hospital general manager Debbie Bickerton took a spin around yesterday.
Motorists using the public car park can see the new ICT (Information and Communications Technology) building taking shape.
Behind it are the new generator house and electricity substation, the latter building closest to the old boiler house.
Two generators have been installed as immediate back-up for the new and operating switchboard in the substation.
The collapse of National Buildplan Group had disrupted the relocation of power.
Movement of the crane towards the "old switchboard room" in the boiler house was evidence yesterday of another job ticked off the early works list.
Brick work for the ICT, generator house and substation is underway.
The "charcoal and white" bricks that will encase the buildings are also set to be used in the redevelopment main works, beginning in the first quarter of next year.
Meanwhile, renewal of the public car park is about to take flight. An expansion at its northern end is finished and in use.
Ms Bickerton said the second and now final stage of the renewal project would begin next week and last a month to six weeks.
It will involve relevelling and resurfacing of a facility still inhabited by brightly-dressed traffic controllers.
The $79.8 million stage one and two redevelopment of Dubbo Hospital is being funded by the state and federal governments to the tune of $72.7 million and $7.1 million, respectively.
Old infrastructure is making way for the construction of one-storey and two-storey buildings that will house surgical and maternity services.
Access to the new buildings, that will take up about half a hectare of land and push the public car park further east, will be from the right hand side of the hospital's existing reception desk in its main foyer that is also set for a makeover.
