November 2004

Alfred surgery centre underway

The new $60 million elective surgery centre at the Alfred Hospital will treat more than 48,000 patients each year and ease pressure on emergency services at the hospital.

Turning the sod to mark the start of construction of the Alfred Centre, Health Minister Bronwyn Pike said it would provide a specialist centre of excellence to treat patients and ease waiting times for elective surgery.

The Government is funding the five-level facility (two-level underground carpark, three-level clinical block), on the corner of Commercial and Punt Roads in Prahran.

The new building adjoins the main Alfred Hospital.

‘The new Alfred Centre will be a world-class facility that will treat more than 20,000 inpatients and 28,000 outpatients each year when it is fully operational,’ Ms Pike said.

‘The opening of the centre will separate short-stay elective procedures, including surgery, from emergency care.

‘This will help avoid the situations where elective surgery is cancelled at hospitals such as the Alfred because of a busy run on the Emergency Department which ties up the surgeons, nurses and theatres.

‘The new centre will ease elective surgery and procedure waiting times for patients at the Alfred and patients from other hospitals will be able to be redirected to the new centre for elective surgery.’

The centre includes consulting suites, diagnostic services including an MRI, CT scan, angiography and X-ray facilities, 18 short stay beds, 16 medical/diagnostic procedure beds, eight medi hotel beds, 25 same day beds, four operating theatres, two cardiology suites, two endoscopy suites and 58 recovery beds and chairs.