Caboolture Hospital is on track for a healthy future with several key infrastructure projects delivered recently paving the way for further expansion.

State Member for Morayfield Mark Ryan and Federal Member for Longman Susan Lamb visited the hospital today to meet staff and patients in the new $7.25 million Outpatient Services building.

“The interior of the buildings is truly impressive and will enhance the patient experience with natural light, bright colours, comfortable waiting rooms, children’s playground, parents’ room and internal phones to book appointments with other services in the hospital such as x-rays,” Mr Ryan said.

“Thanks to the new car park strategically built outside the building, the project has made travelling much easier for patients coming to appointments.”

Mr Ryan said the new Outpatient Services building represented one of the first steps towards the much-needed interim expansion of the hospital’s Emergency Department.

“The former outpatient rooms in the main building will soon house medical imaging, which will clear the way for construction work on the interim ED expansion to start later this year,” Mr Ryan said.

“The Caboolture Hospital ED sees an average of 4500 patients per month, which is forecast to grow to 5500 patients per month by 2021/22.

“The interim ED expansion will significantly increase the floor space and have more appropriate places for the management of children, mental health and elderly patients.”

Caboolture Hospital Executive Director Dr Lance Le Ray said other recent improvements at the hospital, including two new resuscitation rooms in the Emergency Department and new Coronary Care Unit, were also great news for the Caboolture community.

“Two new purpose-built resuscitation rooms have state-of-the-art, new medical equipment for patients who come to the ED with life-threatening conditions,” Dr Le Ray said.

“This helps our hard working staff deliver high-quality urgent care for priority patients – those that need to be treated immediately due to serious illness or injury.

“The two previous bays will now be refurbished, which will ensure that patients who come to Caboolture Hospital needing urgent care receive it well within the recommended clinical timeframes.

“The hospital’s new four-bed Coronary Care Unit (CCU) enables staff to deliver enhanced specialised care for coronary patients and greatly expands the level of service and expert care that the hospital can provide to the community here in Caboolture.

“Creating a stand-alone CCU also allows the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit (ICU) to add two new ventilator capable beds, with the first one already in place and the final one due in early April.”

The hospital’s Cardiac Sciences Room has also been refurbished as part of the CCU project.
Mr Ryan said the Palaszczuk Government was committed to delivering world-class health services and infrastructure in Caboolture and throughout Queensland.

“We committed to a major redevelopment of Caboolture Hospital during the recent election campaign,” Mr Ryan said.

“Once complete, this redevelopment program will expand the hospital’s capacity from 260 beds currently to at least 390 beds including mental health beds.

“Patient demand at Caboolture Hospital is growing about five per cent each year, so this much-needed expansion will ensure the hospital can continue to meet community expectations for many years to come.”

“As you can see, we’re making a strong investment in the future health of the Caboolture Hospital and the community.”

The Federal Member for Longman said she was impressed that the State Government was continuing to make upgrades to the Caboolture Hospital, commenting on the Member for Morayfield’s perseverance in spite of the Federal Government’s plans to make further cuts to Queensland hospitals.

“Despite the Federal Government’s failure to hand over $1 billion in outstanding funding and forecasting further cuts to our local hospitals, I really have to commend Mark Ryan on these remarkable achievements,” Susan Lamb said.

“Mark has listened to our community’s feedback when it comes to improving the Caboolture Hospital’s facilities, coming through with the new Outpatient Services building and being on-track to deliver a new Emergency Department.”

Speaking on the opportunities ahead to improve health and hospital funding at next Federal Election, Ms Lamb said that she was eager to start implementing Labor policy at a Federal level to complement the work being done by the Queensland Government.

“Since 2015, I have been pushing the Federal Government to supply additional Medicare-eligible MRI licences to our area. The problem is, we need the Federal Government to come to the table and approve them,” said Ms Lamb.

“I’m really looking forward to the day when Labor forms Government at a Federal level so that we can begin reversing the damage being done by the Federal Government and start supporting our State Government’s fantastic work, like the work being done here at the Caboolture Hospital,” Ms Lamb said.

“I’ll be taking a suite of policies to the next Federal election to support our community’s healthcare needs, like investing $53 million in the fight to make HIV history; providing $12 million towards ovarian cancer research and prevention; and capping skyrocketing private health insurance increases at 2 percent.”