A Tamworth community group, which has successfully lobbied for a new Banksia mental health unit, wants the new institution to be based on an award-winning Canberra hospital.
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Joan Wakeford, founding member of the Tamworth Mental Health Carers' Support Group, said consultation has already begun over the new project.
The process of winning approval for the hospital upgrade first required the completion of the Clinical Services Plan, a massive region-wide program of consultation and planning. That process was slow and drawn out, Mrs Wakeford said.
She said the new co-design process has proven much quicker.
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The carers' group got the impression during consultation meetings a fortnight ago that "this was now a priority", she said.
"They weren't going to go slow on it. We got the impression they wanted to proceed with this as fast as is reasonable."
Mrs Wakeford said she greeted a group of consultation specialists - she met with a professor of nursing from the University of Newcastle - with photos of a new Canberra hospital she wants architects to emulate.
"We were very impressed with the openness and the skills of the people they sent up," she said.
"We were asking for something that we'd seen on the internet in the new mental health unit in Canberra. At the Canberra hospital there was an award-winning unit. It had beautiful use of timber and primary colours. Quite different from the colour scheme that's in Banksia."
She said they are also asking for just a single floor with internal courtyards so patients could get fresh air.
Mrs Wakeford also said the new unit ought to have a discreet, private area, with one or two beds set set aside for young people and other vulnerable new patients.
In 2018 the Tamworth Mental Health Carers' Support Group collected 12,000 signatures demanding a new Banksia Mental Health Unit.
The new institution will have 8 more beds than the old one, and will be built on an entirely new site. Minister for Mental Health Bronnie Taylor said the new unit would be "co-located" with the Tamworth hospital at one of three sites, which have yet to be revealed.
The project is set to be co-designed with a variety of local stakeholders including the carers' group.
Andrew Messenger
Politics, environment and energy journalist at the Northern Daily Leader. I also write about health, bushfires and occasionally music. I'm a Brisbane boy by way of Charleville and Hobart who now lives in in beautiful New England. Get me at andrew.messenger@austcommunitymedia.com.au
Politics, environment and energy journalist at the Northern Daily Leader. I also write about health, bushfires and occasionally music. I'm a Brisbane boy by way of Charleville and Hobart who now lives in in beautiful New England. Get me at andrew.messenger@austcommunitymedia.com.au
