Thirty six people attended the opening of the Armidale Regional Hospital in the small garden outside the new Emergency Department entrance on Wednesday morning. Armidale Health Service manager Catherine Death was present and thought it was fantastic to see the facility officially in use.
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“It is a beautiful facility and it is great to finally open it,” Ms Death said.
“The staff love it and the patients are loving it. I think the modern building is absolutely fantastic.
“It’s worth every cent of the $60 million. I think you can see it’s been designed very well, you can see the flow and how well it’s being used. It’s providing a brilliant service.”
The fact that all my family is from Armidale makes this one a little bit special.
- Rebecca Wark
Rebecca Wark is the NSW executive director of rural and regional health infrastructure, she’s from Armidale and all health infrastructure jobs in rural and regional NSW find their way onto her desk, which she said was about $5 billion worth of work in the pipeline at the moment.
“I’ve got a real passion for rural areas and it’s great to be able to invest in the communities and make a real difference to their health systems,” she said.
“Its been a little bit over 12 months since the new building opened, and we’ve just finished the refurbishment of the day surgery unit and ICU. It’s great now to have finished this project and let everyone get on with running this fantastic new facility.”
Today we’re celebrating the hard work of many, many, many people.
- Michael DiRienzo
Chief Executive of Hunter New England Health District Michael DiRienzo said he thought the building was fabulous, and a beautiful addition to the hospital.
“It’s great to see the fruition of everybody’s efforts,” he said.
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Member for Northern Tablelands Adam Marshall said Wednesday was not only a historic day for health care in Armidale, but for the whole region.
“For me, this is an incredibly exciting day. It’s been in the construction phase for about 18 months, but the planning kicked off in about 2014,” Mr Marshall said.
“This has been a huge project. New and expanded emergency department, new and additional operating theatres, new general wards, palliative care area for the first time, stroke recovery area, new and upgraded intensive care unit and a day surgery unit.
“It really does bring health care at this facility into the 21st Century. It will provide a health care service to look after the health needs of this communiity for decades to come.”
Armidale Regional Council Mayor Simon Murray said he was looking forward to getting inside to having a look around.
“I was here when they first did their tour, a long time ago. So, it would be good to go back through it,” he said.
