Technical completion of new Royal Adelaide Hospital announced
HEALTH Minister Jack Snelling has today announced the technical completion of the $2.3 billion new Royal Adelaide Hospital but has still not declared an official opening date.
HEALTH Minister Jack Snelling has today announced the technical completion of the $2.3 billion new Royal Adelaide Hospital but has still not declared an official opening date.
As revealed by The Advertiser on Monday, the milestone will see the flagship hospital gradually come to life as it moves into a 90-day “facility transition” period prior to “commercial acceptance” when the nRAH could theoretically open for business in mid-June.
After six years since building first began, the historic moment comes almost one year after the long-overdue and over-budget hospital was officially due to open in April 2016.
Despite repeated questions from the media over the past few months, the State Government has not yet set a firm opening date for the hospital but Mr Snelling said it would make the mammoth North Tce shift when “it is safe for us to move”.
“We’ll be working day and night to do everything we can to be in here before flu season,” he said.
“We need to ramp down the old Royal Adelaide Hospital to as fewer patients as we possibly can when it is safe to do so.
“I can’t control when flu season comes on, I can’t control how busy our hospital are (and) the first consideration has to be safety — there’s too much at stake with something as complex as this.”
“(If) flu season hits early — and our hospitals are full — it’s going to make it difficult and unsafe to ramp down the old Royal Adelaide Hospital and we might have to look at another date.”
Over the next few months, the transition period will include a series of dress rehearsals involving 756 people over 40 days acting out real-time clinical scenarios from a trauma patient arriving via helicopter to a full scale evacuation and more than 7000 staff and volunteers will receive training and orientation on site before patients arrive at a still unknown date later this year.
Mr Snelling said the Government was now “entering what will be the most complex phase now the building is essentially built” and labelled the nRAH as “arguably the most advanced hospital in the world”.
“The 90-day (transition period) is obviously a minimum period of time — a lot will depend on the testing and commissioning and how that goes,” he said.
“I have to be 100 per cent satisfied that it’s absolutely safe to move patients into our new hospital and I’ll be guided by expert doctors and nurses on that, I won’t be driven to some sort of political deadline.”
Opposition health minister Stephen Wade said it was “concerning” Mr Snelling could not give an opening date for the new hospital.
“If the Minister is confident that the new hospital will meet the required tests, the hospital should open ninety days from now,” he said.
“Given that the project is already a year late and $640 million over budget, South Australians are entitled to a straight answer from the Minister.”
