North West Hospital and Health Board chairman Paul Woodhouse has reason to be pleased with the 2016 Queensland state budget with a boost in funding for two significant projects.
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“The announcements deliver $909,000 toward the refurbishment of the Alan Ticehurst Building in Cloncurry, and $5m for the McKinlay Multi Purpose Health Service (Julia Creek Hospital),” Mr Woodhouse said.
“Both projects reflect the Board’s reprioritisation process, and the amount of planning that has gone into the process.”
The Alan Ticehurst Building will be refurbished to develop a new community health and dental surgery for Cloncurry. Currently these facilities occupy three aging buildings in Sheaffe and Daintree Sts.
Mr Woodhouse said the Alan Ticehurst Building, on the corner of Uhr and McIlwraith Sts would need significant changes, but would result in an excellent community health facility.
“There will be five treatment rooms instead of one, a purpose built Mental Health room, which can also double as a treatment room, a dental surgery which meets current standards, a reception area which will afford some privacy for patients, the separation of staff and public toilets, with the provision of a disabled toilet, a designated office for the Nurse Unit Manager, and an increase in office space from two to five stations,” he said.
“I am particularly pleased for our loyal and hardworking staff who have had to work in cramped and below standard conditions in the old facilities, and for our patients who will benefit from the new premises.”
The $5m designated for the McKinlay MPHS was for the refurbishment and extension of the facility to incorporate aged care, Mr Woodhouse said.
“These improvements will bring the Julia Creek Hospital into line with the recent Aged Care additions to the Cloncurry Hospital, both of which reflect the needs of their communities with respect to caring for the aged,” he said.
NWHHS chief executive, Lisa Davies Jones, said she too was delighted with the budget announcements.
“I visited both facilities last month, and I was so impressed with the way staff are working with the current facilities and I look forward, as they do, to improved facilities in both Cloncurry and Julia Creek,” Ms Davies Jones said.
Work on both facilities was likely to begin later in the year, once the tendering process ends.
