My adjournment is for the Minister for Health Infrastructure, and the action I seek is that the minister come and join me in showing our local groups, including my seniors, my multicultural community, my schools and my community organisations, the fantastic work that we have done in building the brand new Footscray Hospital. The minister and I have on many occasions visited the site, most recently last week in fact, and I have to say it was such a great visit; it was smiles all round. The Premier dropped in to have a bit of a quiet walk around to check out just how amazing this brand new hospital is. I have to say I cannot wait until our community is able to experience the incredible benefits and the uplift that will be delivered through this outstanding $1.5 billion investment in health services for Melbourne’s west. Once fully operational it will deliver more than 500 beds, and that will be a 66 per cent increase on the existing hospital for patients right across the west. This is actually going to allow for an extra 15,000 people to be treated every year and an additional 20,000 people to be seen by the bigger and better emergency department that we have built there at the hospital.
This will support over 4500 staff members who are being trained as we speak to start work there, and from what I have heard from Western Health, they absolutely cannot wait to start work in their brand new hospital.
Other services that this hospital is going to offer are mental health, drug and alcohol treatment and intensive coronary care, which will also be transitioned to the new site. There are going to be 16 operating theatres, and the hospital is set to become the surgery capital of Melbourne’s west. This is a really exciting time for my community, and I know they cannot wait to get in and have a sneak peek. I have got a very long waitlist for people that want to jump on these tours, and that is exactly why I would absolutely love the minister to join me and show my local community around the hospital that is going to be saving lives and changing lives in the gateway to Melbourne’s west.
