New Royal Adelaide Hospital officially opened as big patient move begins
4PM UPDATE: Nearly 100 patients have been transferred to the new RAH and the big move is going smoothly despite some initial “lumps and bumps”.
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SOUTH Australia’s $2.3 billion new Royal Adelaide Hospital has officially opened, and ambulances have started the huge task of moving patients — but the State Government has warned people to stay away from the emergency department until Tuesday morning.
The mammoth task of moving patients from the old RAH to the new began in earnest on Monday morning, before the emergency department opens to all comers from 7am Tuesday.
By 4pm, 85 patients had been moved in a rotation of 16 ambulances as well as the ambulance bus. That was about two-thirds of the day’s target of 130 patients.
Ambulances began couriering patients between the hospitals just after 7am, after a “ramp down” in activity at the old RAH over recent weeks reduced its activity rates to about half that of normal levels.
The move has been running smoothly, with the RAH ramped down to 383 patients as of this morning. This includes patients who will be discharged rather than moved to the new hospital.
Traffic along North Tce is flowing well despite the extra ambulances on the road.
Roselyn Katsikas, 56, an olive farmer from the Mallee with Crohn’s Disease, was the first patient taken from the old RAH to the new one, at 7.45am.
She said the old hospital was “functional but tired” and was looking forward to the new: “It sounds like a holiday resort,” she said.
Health Minister Jack Snelling met Mrs Katsikas at the old RAH and again after she had settled into her new room.
“The first patient is nice and cosy in her private room with private ensuite, it’s like chalk and cheese from the old hospital,” he said.
SA Ambulance Service chief executive Jason Killens, who is in command of the move, said it was going to plan after some initial “lumps and bumps” with equipment, which were resolved immediately.
“We’ve begun the clinical move, 130 patients are planned to be moved today, then again tomorrow and again on Wednesday, we’ve gone pretty much to plan,” he said.
“We are planning to move all patients by the end of the day on Wednesday.”
This will include four patients flown to the RAH with burns after a car sprayed hot fuel over crowds at a burnout competition in Alice Springs yesterday.
Director of activation at the new hospital Paul Lambert said staff on site were settling in well.
“We are on track with the move and they are very good spirits all the way across the hospital,” he said.
Yesterday, Mr Snelling said that the unveiling on Sunday, on Father’s Day, felt like becoming a dad yet again.
“It’s fitting that this hospital is being opened on a day that honours family,” he said.
“For the small part I have played in this enormous project, I can’t help feeling like today is my seventh time as a dad.”
Mr Snelling said he was “confident it will go smoothly”.
“It’s been a massive system-wide effort, and it speaks volumes about the sorts of things that we can achieve in this state,” he said. “It is certainly going to be very challenging over the next few days.
“Our ambulance service are well-trained, and I have enormous confidence they will be able to complete this move.”
Mr Snelling stressed that anyone needing medical treatment should attend the old RAH until the switch over time of 7am Tuesday.
Anyone attending the old RAH after the changeover time will be met with fencing, staff and signs there that direct them to the other end of North Tce.
Premier Jay Weatherill used the occasion to pay tribute to his predecessor Mike Rann’s involvement in the project, and criticised Liberal opponents who’d “been bagging this project from day one”.
“There is no more important public policy project than healthcare,” he said.
“It’s a very Labor project. We believe that every person should be entitled to receive the highest quality of healthcare and it shouldn’t depend on their bank balance.”
Mr Weatherill said the new RAH was the centrepoint of a broader health research and innovation precinct which would become a centre of economic activity and job creation over coming decades.
Opposition health spokesman Stephen Wade said “there is no doubt that it’s a good facility, but it could have been significantly better” if clinicians had more input in design, and that the cost was also a huge weight for the system.