The newly built hospital - the $68.7 million clinical services building - opens on Wednesday, December 9.
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An enormous amount of consideration and planning has gone into the transfer process, to ensure it is both smooth and safe.
Already a significant amount of equipment has been transferred from the old Milton Park Wing, the Children's Ward and the Emergency Department.
From 8am on December 9, any new patients presenting to the old Emergency Department will be re-directed to the new Emergency Department which is accessed from the new hospital entrance road that runs off Bowral Street - just a 100 metres further to the east of the old Emergency entrance and ambulance ramp.
Patients already in the old Emergency Department prior to 8am on December 9 will be seen and processed fully in the old Emergency Department until either discharged or admitted.
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There is no planned elective surgery at BDH for the week from December 7 to 11.
Emergency surgery such as urgent orthopaedic surgery for fractures or caesarean surgery for maternity cases will be done in either the old or the new facility as there will be an emergency theatre available in both the old and the new hospitals for the week. After that, the new hospital surgical suite (on the first floor of the new building) will be fully operational.
Between 9am and 5pm on December 9, about just over half of the Milton Park Ward patients will be moved to the Ground Floor Inpatient Unit (ward) in the new building.
On the following day, December 10, between 9am and midday, it is planned to move the remaining the Milton Park Ward patients to the First Floor Inpatient Unit (ward) in the new building.
Between 10am and 1pm on December 10 it is planned to move all patients from the old High Dependency Unit in the Milton Park Wing to the new Intensive Care Unit upstairs on the first floor of the new building.
On Thursday, between midday and 1pm it is planned to move all patients from the old Children's Ward to the new Children's Ward upstairs on the second floor of the new building and between 2pm and 4pm it is planned to move all patients from the old Maternity Ward to the new Maternity Ward upstairs on the second floor of the new building.
There are no significant changes to Pathology Outpatient services, Allied Health Outpatient services and the Cardiac Assessment Unit.
Paediatric, Obstetrics and Gynaecology Outpatients will be directed to the new building as needed.
Most other outpatient services will remain in their current location.
The Covid Testing Clinic will remain at its current location off Ascot Road.
Bowral Medical Imaging services (x-ray, CT, ultrasound etc) will be accessed though the pre-Covid routes of either the back of the Private Hospital, the path between the Private Hospital and the old Emergency Department, or along the verandah of the ground floor of the old Milton Park Wing.
Covid screening for Bowral Medical Imaging will take place inside the Bowral Medical Imaging building.
The recently announced NSW Budget confirms $55 million for stage two of the hospital's redevelopment, which will include a second new building on the hospital campus.
Planning will soon get underway to determine the clinical services that will be located in the new building.
It is anticipated that the Milton Park Wing will be closed down and closed off after next week and its ultimate removal is likely to form part of the stage two of the redevelopment.
While Covid precautions prevent the us from inviting the community in to inspect our new hospital or even having an official opening, there will be a video posted in the next week or so on the hospital's Facebook page to showcase the new building and some of the people that have helped bring the project to fruition.
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