By Xavier Smerdon
A new $28 million building at Werribee Mercy Hospital is in danger of closing just four months after it opened because of federal and state budget pressures.
The Catherine McAuley Centre is a rehabilitation and geriatric medicine complex built to cater for patients in Melbourne’s west who are recovering from surgery or serious injury.
The two-storey building, opened in February, offers an in-patient ward with 30 multi-day beds, eight two-bed rooms and 14 single-bed rooms.
It also includes a gymnasium, meeting rooms, staff rooms and offices on the ground floor.
But Lalor MP Joanne Ryan said funding cuts to Mercy Health, which runs the hospital, could close the new sub-acute and rehab facility.
Mercy Health executive director of health services Dr Linda Mellors confirmed that federal funding for sub-acute services in the new building would end on June 30.
“We’re now waiting on our budget for the next financial year,” she said.
“The rehabilitation and geriatric evaluation and management beds have been full almost since we opened.
“These services were desperately needed and I’m certain the community would be disadvantaged if they were no longer available.”
Ms Ryan said Mercy Health had been hit with funding cuts of $29.4 million over the next four years.
“Mercy Health in Werribee has well-trained and dedicated staff; some of the top experts in Victoria choose to work at this service,” Ms Ryan said. “But this makes their task so much harder. Not only is there no new money to fund for growth, it cuts expected operation funding. This will have an immediate impact.
“This funding cut has the potential to put the brand new sub-acute and rehab facility under threat of closure.”
A spokesman for federal Health Minister Peter Dutton said health funding to Victoria would rise from $3.46 billion in 2013-14 to $4.69 billion by 2017-18.
“In regards to sub-acute beds, Ms Ryan knows full well that was a one-off funding arrangement,” the spokesman said.
Ms Ryan said that when compared to Labor’s last budget, the Abbott government was investing
$3.2 billion less for public hospitals and Wyndham residents could not afford to see health services go backwards.
“We’re a high-growth area that requires further investment, not cuts.
Star Weekly revealed in May that Werribee Mercy had missed out on
$85 million requested from the state government for new operating theatres, an in-patient unit, central sterile supply department, and eight critical-care beds.
