Almost a decade since it was first announced and half a decade since it first broke ground, the new Footscray Hospital is now open.
The doors of the $1.5 billion hospital on the corner of Ballarat and Geelong roads swung open at 8am on Wednesday 18 February, with the first of about 180 patients being transferred from the old hospital on Gordon Street, arriving soon after.
One of the first patients transported the 1.3 kilometers down Ballarat Road from old hospital to new, was 84-year-old Lucy, who was settled in her bed in the acute aged care ward on level 9a by 8.30am.
“I’m in awe,” Lucy said as she enjoyed the view of Flemington Racecourse from her bed.
It wasn’t just new patients who were left in awe on Wednesday morning, with plenty of Western Health staff stopping to take pictures and selfies outside the new hospital before starting their shifts.
In the spacious main foyer, crowds began gathering for the official opening to be presided over by Premier Jacinta Allan.
Shortly after 8.30am the premier, flanked by Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas, Health Infrastructure Minister and Williamstown MP Melissa Horne, Footscray MP Katie Hall various other dignitaries and staff, arrived to unveil the plaque and formally declare one of the state’s largest ever health infrastructure projects, open.
“This is a new hospital for Footscray, and a new future for health care in the west,” Ms Allan said before she, her colleagues and gaggle of media went upstairs for a press conference while the new hospital slowly came to life.
Doctors with stethoscopes over their shoulders, nurses wearing scrubs and running shoes, and security guards with walkie-talkies began criss-crossing the foyer with increasing frequency.
Lounges and working spaces began to fill, delivery vans arrived at the front entrance to drop off goods that were then ferried about on trolleys and queues began forming behind coffee machines at cafes.
Observing all this mundane hospital activity with pride was Western Heath chair and former health minister and Altona MP, Jill Hennessy.
“Everyone is walking a million miles tall today in Melbourne’s west,” Ms Hennessy said of the new hospital which she first announced as health minister in 2018 and which she’d been working towards for years prior to that.
“Twenty years ago I was on the board of Western Health and we were talking about trying to get a new hospital for Footscray then,” she said.
Also watching on with pride, but more so relief, was Western Health chief executive Professor Russell Harrison, who said that after two years of planning, the opening and transfer of patients appeared to be going well.
“We’ve got about 24 patients now transferred from across from Footscray, that’s to time, our first surgery is underway, that’s emergency surgery so that’s obviously a big test as a functioning hospital, and our ED has got three or four patients in it I’m told,” Mr Harrison said just after 10am on Wednesday.
He said the closure of the old hospital after more than 70 years also added a tinge of sadness to another otherwise triumphant day.
“Some of our staff had worked there for 30, 40 years, 52 years is our longest serving staff member, so a lot of feelings trapped in that.”
The last patient will leave the ED at the old hospital at 8pm on Wednesday night.
