THE first patients are expected to be admitted from mid-November on the ground floor of Armidale Hospital’s new Ambulatory Care building with chemotherapy service staff busily preparing to move in.
Northern Tablelands MP Adam Marshall and Federal New England MP Barnaby Joyce toured the new three-storey $8 million facility last Friday and spoke to staff and management about the range of services that will be available from the new centre.
Mr Marshall said the new facility would ensure patients have access to more streamlined health services in one modern, purpose built location.
“It will provide a range of services including ambulatory care services; there will be specialist consulting rooms for surgeons, anaesthetists, renal physicians, obstetrics and gynaecology; chronic disease services, dietician services and chemotherapy,” Mr Marshall said.
“The new facility will greatly enhance Armidale Hospital’s capacity to treat cancer patients from Armidale and neighbouring districts.
“The ground floor of the building will be dedicated to medical oncology services.
“The new chemotherapy unit will not only provide more space for cancer services, it will also fund two more chemotherapy treatment chairs, taking the total number of cancer treatment places at Armidale Hospital from six to eight in 2013.”
Work will continue on the first and second floors and ambulatory care service are expected to begin providing patient care from the new building early in the New Year.
The project is funded through $6.71m from NSW Government and $1.3m from the Australian Government’s Regional Cancer Centres Initiative through the Health and Hospitals Fund Program.
Mr Marshall said he was looking forward to leading a delegation from Armidale down to Canberra soon to meet with Federal Health Minister Peter Dutton and Mr Joyce, to push the case for funding for the upgrade of the Armidale Hospital.
“The design work and costings are done and the NSW Government has committed its share of the funding – now I’m looking forward to working closely with Barnaby Joyce to attract the Federal funding of $50 million required to undertake this critical upgrade to Armidale Hospital,” he said.
