A state-of-the-art intensive care unit is the jewel in the crown of a $29 million Sunshine Hospital makeover.
The redevelopment, officially opened last week, includes the 13-bed ICU, two cardiac catheterisation laboratories, a coronary care unit, renal dialysis unit and medical imaging services featuring an angiography suite, CT scanner and ultrasound.
The hospital’s maternity services have also been expanded to include five new delivery rooms. Combined with the new ICU, mothers needing critical care will no longer have to be transferred to another hospital and separated from their baby. Meanwhile, a range of medical specialties – including cancer, stroke, cardiology, neurology and respiratory services – have been moved from the Footscray Hospital to Sunshine.
Footscray Hospital will continue to operate its own intensive care unit and major surgery.
Western Health intensive care director Craig French said the ICU was expected to treat 600 patients in its first year. “This is part of an overall transition of Sunshine Hospital to make it into a major tertiary centre,” Dr French said.
Western Health board chairwoman Bronwyn Pike said the first person treated by the new ICU was a western suburbs resident who presented at Sunshine Hospital’s emergency department with breathing difficulties. “Before the unit was opened, he would have had to be sedated, intubated, then taken by ambulance to Footscray, or somewhere else.
“Instead, he was brought up to this unit and provided with that full range of urgent treatment. He recovered and went home several days later.
“Until now, Sunshine Hospital – with 426 beds, one of the largest emergency departments in the state and 5000 women giving birth every year – didn’t have access to intensive-care beds.
“People had to be transported out of here.”
