THE long-awaited Warrnambool Base Hospital redevelopment has moved one step closer after years of lobbying by the region's health services, politicians and community.
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Land has been purchased to create the region's first Regional Logistics Distribution Centre in west Warrnambool, marking the first phase in the Warrnambool hospital redevelopment.
The state government has funded the purchase of land, planning and design for the RLDC through the Regional Health and Infrastructure Fund.
All linen services will be relocated to the offsite facility to enable the construction of an acute clinical tower.
The facility will support South West Healthcare and 10 other local health services SWH works closely with including Portland District Health, Western District Health Service, Colac Area Health, Great Ocean Road Health and Casterton Memorial Hospital.
South West Healthcare chief executive Craig Fraser said he was delighted with the state government's support for the expansion of much-needed acute services.
"Relocating key regional services offsite will allow for the creation of a development zone on the Warrnambool Base Hospital site for the future construction of a clinical tower that includes a new emergency department and theatre complex," he said.
"This is a key piece of the work required in the broader proposed Warrnambool Base Hospital redevelopment with the business case being refreshed and completed in recent weeks.
"The Warrnambool Base Hospital redevelopment is a major priority in the 2020-24 South West Healthcare Strategic Plan and will significantly improve the emergency department, theatres and additional ward capacity that enables us to provide the very best care for our growing community.
"We are very grateful for the significant support of the Victorian Health and Human Services Building Authority VHHSBA and the Department of Health and Human Services DHHS who are working closely with us in the design planning phase."
The Cooper Street site is a 6475m2 block on the corner of Cooper and Robson Streets in west Warrnambool's industrial precinct.
The land was purchased in January.
Mr Fraser said he could not say how much the land cost to purchase, when the distribution facility would be built and when works would start on the clinical tower.
This will become part of a budget submission to the government. So, we have to wait for that budget submission to be approved at some point.
- Craig Fraser, South West Healthcare CEO
"There's no timeline on that at the moment because this part of the planning process was critical to be able to finalise the whole master plan as such, and therefore the budget submissions into the future for that as well," he said.
"This part of the planning process allows the project to be presented to the government. And I don't want to miss that, we've been continuing to work on this over the last 18 months so it's not like we've stalled and then suddenly restarted, there's been this work happening in the background with the support of the government, so they're very aware of that and very supportive of this process."
The base hospital currently processes around 87,000 kilograms of linen per month and over two million supply requisitions per year for health services across the south-west.
The development will expand those services.
The hospital has outgrown its intended capacity by more than 10,000 patients per year with numbers continuing to climb.
There has been a strong push for government funding for stage two of the base hospital upgrades for years, which would include the construction of a four-level clinical tower, a new emergency department and operating theatres.
The current three operating theatres would increase to six, while emergency department cubicles would expand from 19 to 38.
The building would also contain a 32-bed inpatient unit, a paediatric unit, a 12-chair dialysis unit and centralised sterilising and pathology departments.
"It actually allows us some capacity to actually go into the future," Mr Fraser said. "So not just what we're doing now, where we would move to six theatres rather than three full theatres plus an endoscopy suite, it would allow us to actually have ED that's incorporated but also anyone who visits our emergency department will realise how tight it is with space.
"So it actually doesn't just design it for now, but also for the future to allow us to expand as the demand increases, both from a health point of view but also from a population view."
Hospital board chair Bill Brown said he hoped the Regional Logistics Distribution Centre and clinical tower would be built by 2024 in line with the strategic plan.
"The strategic plan wasn't specifically about milestones or timing over the four-year period but we expect the broader stage two redevelopment of the base hospital to be done in that time. But these things take time, we continue with the team to push the case," he said.
"Ultimately the decision is not with the board."
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