Dubbo Hospital has been “vibrating” for about two weeks as ground is compacted in preparation for construction of its second three-storey clinical building.
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Hospital general manager Debbie Bickerton expects the building will take shape quickly after its slab is poured.
“We should see the first pour before the end of the year and continuing into the new year, and then I think you will see it come up pretty quickly after that,” she told the Daily Liberal this week.
The general manager reported that stage four redevelopment of the hospital was “well under way”.
She said works already completed included a new car park which would be opened when “specialist medical clinics in Myall Street” moved into the new building.
“Once we do that there will be extra activity on the site and that’s when we will open the car park,” Ms Bickerton said.
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The clinics will join ambulatory care on level one of the new three-storey clinical building.
On level two will be an intensive care unit, coronary care/stroke unit and cardiac catheter laboratory.
A medical imaging unit and emergency department will be on the ground floor.
Ms Bickerton said the new building on the south-eastern corner of the hospital campus would be constructed in stages and interspersed with demolition work. It’s a very technical build,” she said.
The general manager said builder Hansen Yuncken was currently considering three stages, each of them three-storey high. “They will be joined together,” she said.
Opening of the facilities within the new building will also be in stages. “We’re looking at imaging opening up by the end of next year,” Ms Bickerton said. “The new imaging unit with the MRI and CT (scanner).”
Meanwhile, Health Infrastructure has called for tenders for the construction of a new renal unit in the hospital’s Talbragar Building, a regional hub for surgical and maternity services constructed under stage one and two redevelopment.
Ms Bickerton is hoping that the tender for the Western Cancer Centre will go out “shortly” so it will be completed around the same time as stage four redevelopment.
The hospital’s old surgical theatres and current renal unit are making way for the centre, funded with $25 million from the federal government and $10 million from the state government.
It will have a PET CT scanner, a bunker for radiation therapy and 16 chemotherapy treatment spaces.
The hospital’s four stages of redevelopment are costing a total of $241.3 million with the state government providing the large majority of the money.