The bedding comfort factor is set to improve for staff and patients at Castlemaine Health thanks to a tidy $780,000 state government funding boost.
Member for Bendigo West Maree Edwards was in Castlemaine on Friday to announce the dollars through the Regional Health Infrastructure Fund.
The funds will be used to replace 130 outdated beds across the hospital’s acute, sub acute and residential aged car services.
They will include four specialist bariatric king single beds and five hi-lo beds for acute surgical patients improving comfort and health outcomes for patients and making life easier and safer for medical staff.
Castlemaine Health CEO Ian Fisher said the new beds were badly needed.
“We’re in a situation now where we just can’t get parts for the beds that we’ve got and it was starting to get a bit urgent.
“We’ve had this request in for months, not years, so it’s been a great response from the government to enable us to replace these beds.”
It is likely that options for reusing the old beds elsewhere will be considered, Mr Fisher said.
“We may look to reuse overseas. In a worst-case scenario, they’ll go for scrap metal.
“Part of the problem is they’re generally all electric beds. You don’t want to pass on something that requires power that some of these places don’t have.
“The local Rotary club here has a great relationship with a hospital in New Guinea and the actual transport isn’t a huge issue you just want to make sure that they are practical and workable and are an asset for those hospitals that they are going to.”
Chair of Castlemaine Health’s board of management Sharon Fraser said a tendering process would now have to be completed before the new beds were delivered for use at Castlemaine Health.
“This $780,000 will effectively replace 75 per cent of our beds and a lot of those beds are more than 20 years old,” Ms Fraser said.
