Page 237 - Week 01 - Thursday, 12 February 2015
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The expansion and refurbishment of the Canberra Hospital ED will improve the ED’s layout, creating efficiencies that will lead to an expected reduction in waiting times. It will also see the integration of transferring children and their parents or carers to a dedicated waiting area and then treatment area for young people.
I turn to the University of Canberra public hospital. This hospital will be the ACT’s first subacute hospital and will form an important part of our health system. The UCPH is currently in the development stage, with construction scheduled to begin in late 2015. Construction is scheduled to be completed by late 2017. The University of Canberra public hospital will provide 140 inpatient beds and 75 day places. It will provide services such as rehabilitation, adult mental health and aged care, with both inpatient units and day services available in each area.
Additionally, UCPH will be a teaching facility, allowing it to extend and enable joint clinical training, teaching and research opportunities between the University of Canberra and ACT Health. Located on the University of Canberra campus, the University of Canberra public hospital will be ideally placed for this strengthening of our collaboration with our key tertiary institutions.
Turning to the secure mental health unit, in 2012 Labor committed to build a secure mental health unit. The purpose of the unit is to provide specialist mental health care in a secure inpatient environment. The facility will respond to the mental health needs of those who are likely to become involved, or who have become involved, with the criminal justice system and those people who cannot be treated in a less restrictive environment.
The 25-bed facility, to be built on the former site of the Quamby Youth Detention Centre at Symonston, will provide individually tailored treatment with programs that seek to maximise individual functioning. The unit is scheduled to begin construction in mid-2015 and is scheduled for completion and operation late 2016.
The unit will be a purpose-built, secure 25-bed mental health facility and it will be an integral part of health services provided by ACT Health. The unit will provide a safe, clinical and therapeutic environment for people with a mental illness who may be characterised as complex, often difficult to treat and who are of serious risk to others. This will also include people with a mental illness who cannot be adequately assessed and treated in a correctional setting. The unit will provide a safe and structured environment with 24-hour clinical support for people with acute or persistent and severe mental illness, and with associated functional and behavioural difficulties requiring secure care.
This $43.5 million project will continue the expansion and improvement of the ACT’s mental healthcare system, which has already commenced with the opening of the adult mental health unit at the Canberra Hospital. The secure mental health unit will provide secure inpatient mental health care, treatment and support for those who cannot be safely cared for in a less restrictive environment.
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