The promise to upgrade the current High Dependency Unit at Bunbury Hospital to an Intensive Care Unit will now be complimented by Commonwealth money to fund improvement of the Emergency Department, according to Health Minister Kim Hames yesterday. He said the Emergency Department expansion would be funded by $14.1million taken from the $70million WA allocation through the Commonwealth Government’s ‘Taking Pressure off Public Hospitals Program’.
The redevelopment will expand the capacity of the Emergency Department from 15 to 27 treatment areas, and an additional 10 bed short stay facility.
In making the announcement, the Minister acknowledged increased demand for hospital services in Bunbury. “We identified Bunbury’s emergency department as priority for this Commonwealth funding because demand for health services in this region have grown,” he said.
However he made no announcement about whether the operation of the new facility would be fully funded, or whether resources would have to be drawn from existing hospital services.
It would appear that without a change in WA Country Health Service funding policy the new unit would not be capable of operating to its potential capacity, and would not represent an overall improvement in service delivery from the Hospital.
Correction:
The original headline for this article “Commonwealth Funds for Bunbury Hospital ICU” was incorrect, according to the Health Minister’s Press Office who advised the following – “The Commonwealth component (the larger amount) is specifically for the upgrade of the Bunbury emergency department. The funds for the ICU are from the state government.
Although this is a single, joint-funded upgrade, there are those two separate components. The distinction is important as the commonwealth funding is from a federal program specifically designed to improve EDs across the country.”