Sneak peek: Have a look inside Bundy Hospital's new ward
PATIENT intake capabilities at the Bundaberg Hospital will increase by 20 people as a new acute medical ward opens on Monday.
Bundaberg
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PATIENT intake capabilities at the Bundaberg Hospital will increase by 20 people as a new acute medical ward opens on Monday.
Located on the second floor of the hospital, the ward has been refurbished to meet increasing health needs for the community.
Featuring new bed designs which haven't been used in the hospital before and an improved communications board, the ward will begin housing patients at 10am on Monday.
The ward also has space for an additional 8 beds in case of surge capacity in an emergency, joining the already established medical ward's 24-bed capacity as well as acute stroke beds, rehab beds and palative care beds which are in another area.
Minister for Health and Ambulance Services Steven Miles said the Bundaberg region is known for having higher-than-average rates of people over 65 and patients with chronic illnesses, meaning more pressure for the hospital to have bed accessibility.
"The new ward will help alleviate that pressure by making sure more patients are getting the right care, in the right place, at the right time,” Mr Miles said.
"It has also led to the creation of about 30 full-time equivalent health-related jobs, which has other positive flow-on economic impacts locally.”
Wide Bay Hospital and Health Services board chair Peta Jamieson said the ward was part of WBHHS's Care comes first ... through patients' eyes plan, and capacity had been a constant concern for the health service.
"Opening the new ward at Bundaberg will increase our capacity to a total of 40 medical beds and help the hospital meet that growing need,” Ms Jamieson said.
"Alongside other important capital builds and upgrades - such as the new Hervey Bay emergency department, and multimillion-dollar refurbishments to Maryborough and Gayndah hospitals - the new medical ward is an important part of our plan to build capacity across the entire region.”
WBHHS executive director of acute hospital and community services Debbie Carroll said the ward was for "general services including monitoring of patients, we have the support of the allied health services as we do in the other medical wards”.
"It will be a general medical ward and certainly with our aging population, with the growing demand, it's certainly welcomed from the staff and we look forward to the opening on Monday,” Mr Carroll said.
"Monday's are traditionally a busy day of the week - I would expect that we would have a flow into the ward and we want to make sure that we do that as smoothly as possible - so we have teams onboard, a new nurse unit manager that we welcome, to make sure that we can transfer the patients from the emergency department and any other wards that have medical patients in them.”
There is no more projects in the pipeline for the hospital at this time as focus shifts towards the new or refurbished level-5 hospital strategy.
During a tour of the facility yesterday, it was noted that the shared rooms in the new ward were spacious and received significant natural lighting.
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