The ground-floor and new ED will sit beside a radiology department with a bunker for a MRI machine and room for a second CT scanner, equipment expected to be acquired in the future.

Participants in a community meeting in Dubbo on the $150 million stage three and four redevelopment of Dubbo Hospital have learned much about its shift from horizontal to vertical. They have also offered the redevelopment team advice on making a planned three-storey building in the south-eastern corner of the hospital campus welcoming and easy to navigate.

About eight people gathered at Dubbo’s Macquarie Club on Tuesday for the meeting led by hospital-based change manager Kerrie O’Neill and ED operations manager and “project lead” for its redevelopment Clint Grose. It followed meetings in Nyngan, Bourke, Walgett and Coonamble. Mr Grose said “common themes” raised by people attending the five meetings included the need for accommodation in Dubbo for regional residents attending the hospital,  and more car parking. “Macquarie Home Stay is coming on board to assist with that and we’re going to deliver 100 more car parking spaces,” Mr Grose said.

Tuesday’s meeting participants were keen to see the 120,000 people in Dubbo Hospital’s catchment area feel at home in the new building, suggesting artwork with regional themes and “did you know” boards. They supported a range of measures aimed at better navigation of the new building, including signs, phone apps, an interactive station and volunteers who would greet visitors and escort them to where they needed to go. Vending machines containing healthy food, a kiosk with plenty of seating inside and out, convenience store and pharmacy also got the thumbs up. There is retail space in the building’s front of house.

The new three-storey building will be the better for tours of about 20 other hospitals by members of the redevelopment team. Mr Grose said the new ED copied equivalents in tertiary hospitals, albeit slightly smaller. Presentations at the Dubbo Hospital’s current ED had soared by 11.7 per cent in the past 18 months to almost 33,000, he said. “It’s starting to show we need a new ED as well as new beds, more inpatient beds in the hospital and increased services,” Mr Grose said. Ms O’Neill said the redevelopment would deliver an extra 47 overnight inpatient beds, but they would not be commissioned “all at once because we are future proofing for future growth”.