New Maitland Hospital at Metford to have more beds than current facility

The Service Statement for the new facility, which was released on Tuesday, shows the hospital will have 339 overnight and day beds, compared with the current hospital which has 196.

The emergency department will have 34 treatment spaces – 11 more than the current hospital, and the number of resuscitation bays will double with four included in the plan.

The department will also feature 8 beds in an Emergency Short Stay Unit (ESSU) which is a first for the hospital. There isn’t enough room at the existing facility to create this kind of unit without taking vital space from another area.

The unit will allow patients to receive their final monitoring and observation away from the busy emergency department and then be admitted or discharged.

“We are dramatically increasing the capacity of the current hospital,” Hunter New England Health Chief Executive Michael DiRienzo said.

“Unfortunately at Maitland a lot of these patients are spending greater than four hours in the emergency department because there is still work up to be undertaken and it’s better to have them in the emergency department, yet it’s not as comfortable being there.

“An ESSU would allow the emergency physicians the time required to actually either plan for their admission into the rest of the hospital or to start working on what support was required and their discharge back into the community.”

There will also be a lot of other firsts at the new site including 12 chemotherapy chairs, two maternity assessment rooms, a cardiac catherisation lab and MRI and Fluoroscopy facilities.

The inclusion of eight Intensive Care Unit and High Dependency Unit beds will allow seriously ill patients to be treated in Maitland instead of being transferred to Newcastle.

“We are going from where we only have four high dependency beds to where we have a combination of eight interchangeable, but predominately, intensive care level beds which will lift the capability of the hospital to actually not have to transfer patients to John Hunter Intensive Care, which is really good for the community,” Mr DiRienzo said.

The bed numbers and treatment spaces will cater for the Lower Hunter’s growing population.