Fairfax Media took a tour inside Armidale Hospital’s new emergency ward and operating theatres on Friday – as the $60 million redevelopment gets even closer to completion.
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In fact, developers are on track to be finished by Christmas.
Northern Tablelands MP Adam Marshall joined Hunter New England Health’s Susan Heyman and Wendy Mulligan on Friday’s tour.
The group visited level two of the new building which houses three theatres and a procedure room.
Ms Mulligan said the theatres are fitted with new technology which presents exciting opportunities for surgical registrars.
“There are opportunities for them to view operations without being in the operating room,” she said.
Ms Mulligan said hospital staff will begin to move in around February.
The process will involve an induction program for staff on all the new equipment.
“Each one of the staff members that are going to be working in this building have to go through a very intensive education program,” she said.
Ms Heyman said it was hard to imagine what the extension would look like when the works began last November.
“When we first started construction it was hard to imagine what this would look like,” she said.
When we first started construction it was hard to imagine what this would look like.
- Susan Heyman
“The external building, the bricks, it looks fabulous and then inside you can see it’s really coming together.”
Mr Marshall said the project was incredibly exciting for Armidale and the whole region.
“This is a jewel in our crown of all the infrastructure projects we’ve got going on,” he said.
“People in Armidale will be blown away when they’re able to walk through and see this for the very first time early next year.
“It’s not just modernising what we’ve currently got in Armidale but it’s about future proofing the health services that will be required to be delivered to this community for decades to come.”
You can find out more about the redevelopment here.
