By XAVIER SMERDON
FOR 23-YEAR-old Storm Robbins, life with cerebral palsy has made the simplest tasks like walking and picking things up incredibly difficult.
But that has not stopped the confident young man from wanting to achieve all that he can in life, and thanks to a brand new multi-million dollar facility, his dreams may now become a reality.
Last week the Victorian Minister for Health, David Davis, opened the new $28 million Catherine McAuley Rehabilitation Centre at Werribee Mercy Hospital.
The centre will help patients with serious injuries and conditions get back into the community.
The ground floor includes a gymnasium, meeting rooms, staff rooms, offices and consulting suites as part of the Hospital Independence Program while the first floor includes an inpatient ward with 30 multi-day beds, eight two-bed rooms and 14 single bed rooms for patients.
Mr Davis said along with a $37 million mental health facility that is due to be completed in 2016, the pocket of Werribee along Hoppers Lane would become known as a major health precinct in Melbourne.
“That is one of the concepts that we’re talking about more broadly is to have important locations like this with public services with some of those key research services and also in the case of training,” Mr Davis told Star.
“You want to be able to train key staff and retain them.
“This is really important because what is required here is this subacute facility that is something that has not been on a sufficient scale and has forced people to go elsewhere.”
As for Storm, he said he was looking forward to receiving regular treatment at the new rehabilitation centre.
“This is not just going to make my life better but everyone else in the community that has a disability,” Storm said.
