An undisclosed number of people have been tested for the coronavirus called COVID-19 at Dubbo Hospital, none of them returning a positive result as of Wednesday morning.
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But the hospital's director of emergency medicine Dr Daniel Stewart is relieved that the potential pandemic and the approaching influenza (flu) season coincides with his staff moving into the"biggest emergency department in country NSW".
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The director and hospital general manager Debbie Bickerton took state Member for the Dubbo electorate Dugald Saunders through the new facility in the under-construction Macquarie Building on Wednesday.
It will co-locate with the hospital's Imaging Department which will "go live" in its new and bigger digs next Wednesday morning.
Dr Stewart and Ms Bickerton confirmed testing for COVID-19 after he revealed that the new ED would "take a lot of pressure off" staff.
The director told of an "unprecedented" influenza season in 2019 factoring into about 6000 more patient presentations at the ED than the previous year.
"..obviously, coronavirus is looming on the horizon," Dr Stewart said.
"We don't know what the affects are going to be for our community.
"The redevelopment and moving into the department is timely."
The director said people being checked for COVID-19 met a criteria but he declined to say how many had been tested.
"We've had no confirmed cases in the community," he said.
Dr Stewart commended the community on its response to the coronavirus.
"We aren't really experiencing a big influx at this stage and I think that's a testament to how sensible our community seems to be," he said.
The director said winter pushed every ED "to the limit but they were designed to cope with the influx of patents".
"What the coronavirus will bring to that mixture is uncertain but..I know whatever comes we will be able to handle it," he said.
"We're well trained and we have the facilities and the backing of the hospital to do so."
Dr Stewart was effusive about the ability of his staff to meet future challenges.
"We punch above our weight in more ways than one and we will be taking a gold standard crew into a gold standard facility in the near future," he said.
The new ED has twice the number of beds and is five times bigger than the existing ED.
Its features include resuscitation bays, a negative-pressure room, isolation rooms, a short-stay unit and ambulance bay accessed from Myall Street.
The new ED is currently at two-thirds of its intended size.
It will be completed when the existing ED and Imaging Unit are demolished, allowing for the expansion of the Macquarie Building.
The ED and Imaging Department are the first to move into the Macquarie Building, constructed under the $150 million stage four redevelopment of the hospital and set to be completed in 2021.
Dr Stewart said the new ED would attract "doctors out to the region" while Mr Saunders suggested it would be replicated in other parts of the state.
On Wednesday Lewis Burns conducted a smoking ceremony at the new facilities to "get rid of any bad spirits".
