THE new $470 million Maitland Hospital will welcome its first patients next week.
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On Friday afternoon, Hunter New England Local Health District confirmed the hospital would open its doors on Wednesday, January 19.
"I'm extremely pleased to inform our community that the official countdown is now on and in a short few days they will have access to state-of-the-art medical care in a modern and high-quality health facility," Hunter New England Local Health District Chief Executive Michael DiRienzo said.
"The transition of patients and services requires careful planning and infection control practices, and this will be our approach as we transition our staff and patients to the new hospital.
"Our staff are already hard-at-work preparing for the move, which will involve bringing our existing services across to the new hospital. This will be a staged process but will happen quite quickly over one week."
When it opens, the staff, patients and services at the existing Maitland Hospital site - which has just under 200 beds and has served the community for more than 175 years - will be directly transferred to the new 339-bed facility.
Mr DiRienzo said the existing Maitland Hospital site on High Street will close to the public from January 19 when the new facility opens.
He said the opening of the new hospital, which had been a decade in the works, was an exciting time for the region.
"With two-thirds of the rooms in the new hospital being single rooms, along with negative pressure rooms we can also better support our COVID-positive patients in the new space," Mr DiRienzo said.
"The new hospital has been built to cater for the community as it grows and changes, and when all services have been transferred, the existing hospital will close."
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