Health funding: Victorian hospitals to receive cash injection of $666m

VICTORIAN hospitals will receive an extra $666 million this financial year, including a cash injection for an expanded stroke unit at Royal Melbourne Hospital.

Royal Melbourne Hospital is to open an expanded stroke unit to keep up with increasing demand.

• Hospital boost for city’s north, west
• Heart hospital funding shortfall

VICTORIAN hospitals will receive an extra $666 million this financial year.

The state government will today announce the 2017-18 bottom-line budget allocations for the health system, with $10.6 billion to be shared between hospitals, ambulance service, mental health and community health.

With the Royal Melbourne Hospital to receive an extra $69.6 million, they are set to open an expanded stroke unit to keep up with increasing demand.

The ward on the 8th floor of the Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre, expected to open in 2019, will increase its current 20 stroke beds to 31. It will also include an extra 20 surgical beds.

RMH Head of neurology Professor Stephen Davis said the relocation would complement the hospital’s site as the leading centre for clot-retrieval therapy in the state.

“Stroke units have been shown to reduce mortality and improve functional outcomes,” Prof Davis said.

“This will be a comprehensive stroke unit, where the patients have ready access to all the modern range of stroke therapies. Stroke care is dramatically changing.

“People who were coming even a few years ago and being destined or a nursing home, are walking out of hospital with greatly minimised brain damage.”