[COM] New Royal Adelaide Hospital | $2.1b

[jk1237]

good post amused.

Id say 99% of the save RAH/opposed to new hospital are devout Liberal party followers from the burbs who oppose anything the govt not of their choice proposes. My own parents fall into this

[Benski81]

good post amused.

Id say 99% of the save RAH/opposed to new hospital are devout Liberal party followers from the burbs who oppose anything the govt not of their choice proposes. My own parents fall into this

I hear you there, my parents are the same. This is despite the fact that my brother works in emergency at the RAH and has tried long and hard to sell them on the new hospital.

[crawf]

AN EMERGENCY department capable of treating an extra 24,000 (25 per cent more) patients every year.

Will this be big enough?

[Amused]

From a health perspective, All I've got is it has to be city central as it's the central recieving hospital in the tertiary hospital spine. LMC-RAH-Flinders. It can't be built on same site without completely closing all services to bulldose. As for why it needs to be where it will be? I can't think of any health implications for having it there or elsewhere.
I suppose it's proximity to the new research facility plus the tram and train lines close. Plus the fact that QEH cops a hammering in comparison to other hospitals so a western-side could be more appropriate to receive north western transfers. The inevitability of the unobstructed north-south corridor being close to receive Flinders/LMC transfers.
It offers patients something to look out their windows at.
Plenty of local accommodation in the city for family driving in from the mid north.
It'll probably bring more business to the west end. A lot of hospital staff go into the city for lunch.
One thing I am worried about is the separation from the university and the dental hospital. The path lab will most definitely relocate to the new hospital site but I would have thought having student access to the hospital was more important than research facility access to the hospital. Hospital based research I'd imagine would be done in the hospital and not the research center...

I dunno really most of those things are trivial. If anyone has suggestions from a cost base or an architectural perspective or anything else perhaps those would be more important to look at.

[Aidan]

Amused - It's good to finally see some sensible arguments in favour of moving the RAH, as most supporters seem to be quite happy for the public to be kept in the dark. But I'm still opposed. The main reason for my opposition is the location - not only is it the perfect location for a future soccer stadium, but also it's a bad idea to move it nearer the QEH and further from the eastern suburbs (which don't have a hospital emergency department). But I am also very concerned about the cost.

You have a good point about the noise of refurbishment, but it can be done quietly with specialist equipment such as waterjet cutters.

There's nothing wrong with having three ground floors - I've lost track of the number of ground floors Flinders Medical Centre has. The solution is simple: instead of calling them Ground Floor, First Floor, Second Floor etc, they're referred to as Level 1, Level 2, Level 3 etc.

I agree the emergency department needs to be much bigger, but it can be made much bigger without having to move the hospital.

As for the problem of electric bed movers not fitting in lifts, there are two obvious solutions: bigger lifts and smaller bed movers. Obviously new lifts should be bigger, but is there any reason why smaller electric bed movers couldn't be used?

I know keeping existing infrastructure puts some restrictions on what can be done, but surely the reduced need for new infrastructure would more than compensate?

P.P.S, John Hill was one of the strongest advocates for a RAH rebuilt on ints existing location until he was shown all the evidence, at which point he agreed it had to be built from scratch elsewhere.

What is your source for that claim? I'm not saying it's wrong, but if he has all the evidence, why has it been concealed from the public?

[Amused]

Amused - It's good to finally see some sensible arguments in favour of moving the RAH, as most supporters seem to be quite happy for the public to be kept in the dark. But I'm still opposed. The main reason for my opposition is the location - not only is it the perfect location for a future soccer stadium, but also it's a bad idea to move it nearer the QEH and further from the eastern suburbs (which don't have a hospital emergency department). But I am also very concerned about the cost.

You have a good point about the noise of refurbishment, but it can be done quietly with specialist equipment such as waterjet cutters.

There's nothing wrong with having three ground floors - I've lost track of the number of ground floors Flinders Medical Centre has. The solution is simple: instead of calling them Ground Floor, First Floor, Second Floor etc, they're referred to as Level 1, Level 2, Level 3 etc.

I agree the emergency department needs to be much bigger, but it can be made much bigger without having to move the hospital.

As for the problem of electric bed movers not fitting in lifts, there are two obvious solutions: bigger lifts and smaller bed movers. Obviously new lifts should be bigger, but is there any reason why smaller electric bed movers couldn't be used?

I know keeping existing infrastructure puts some restrictions on what can be done, but surely the reduced need for new infrastructure would more than compensate?

P.P.S, John Hill was one of the strongest advocates for a RAH rebuilt on ints existing location until he was shown all the evidence, at which point he agreed it had to be built from scratch elsewhere.

What is your source for that claim? I'm not saying it's wrong, but if he has all the evidence, why has it been concealed from the public?

Having looked at the plan for the rebuild, it's not that it can't be done but one needs to be prepared to lose services during that period. Each ward is a specialty ward with a few general medical thrown in. New buildings would need to be completely built and operational before old buildings are decommisioned and demolished.

My biggest concern with the 'Save the Rah' proclaimers is that they went on record stating that the burns unit, ICU and ED were sufficient. Its true that they were the nicest units I've ever seen but the ICU and the ED are too small. The Burns unit is fine. But the ICU and ED would need immediate development. The key point of the Save the Rah people was that in their minds the only thing that needed to be rebuilt was the residentual facility as, in their reasoning, the facility was sub-standard for family coming in from country to stay close to their loved ones. This position would have been good if it was the families that the committee were actually worried about. The truth is that the majority of occupancy of the residentual facility is medical staff either too cheap to get local accomodation or so they can get a small sleep between their rediculous self-inflicted shift allocations, designed to maximise income. The truth is the facility is grosely inappropriate but the arguements of the 'save the rah' committee were extremely self serving.
So immediately I was against what-ever these individuals were saying.

The fact that the hospital is further from the Eastern suburbs is not as important as it being closer to arterial roads. to recieve ambulances from other hospitals. It seems counter-intuative, I know. The Eastern suburbs are well served by numerous private clinics and two ambulance stations for more urgent cases. The distance from the RAH is appropriate in comparrison with other suburbs from tertiary hospitals. A tertiary hospital being LMC, Flinders and RAH. Now, most of what the public would consider OMG EMERGENCY is probably considered more an 'urgent' case. Even many of the patients whom recieve an 'emergency' status are given that because of a worst case scenario and not a likely scenario. A good example is chest pain. This is 99.9% given an emergency status even though the rates of the patient being an actual emergency in comparrison to not an emergency is lower.

For a patient in Greenwith going to the Modbury with chest pain would be the same as someone in Magill going to RAH. Similar distance. Only now, the Patient at Modbury is not at a tertiary hospital but the patient from Magill is. Now in the case that we do some medical stuff and find that the chest pain patient is having a heart attack and heart muscle is dying, then a phone call is made to SA Ambulance whilst emergency intervention begins to try and stop the heart atack from getting worse. Meanwhile the patient whom has arrived at Rah will be directed to the 5th floor and straight into the cath lab for emergency throbolysis, angiography/plasty, or stenting. Meanwhile an ambulance is arriving at Modbury and the patient is being loaded into said ambulance with a nurse escort. That ambulance will now drive lights and sirens toward the Royal Adelaide (one of the few times an ambulance with a patient on board uses their ligts and sirens because the patient is actually in dire straits) with only preventative treatment on going.
The patient at the Royal Adelaide is now out of danger and therapies are being wrapped up, ready for admission to the ward.
When the ambulance from Modbury finally arrives at RAH, the patient finally has access to a cath lab and now has their first opportunity to have heart muscle salvaged.

Now for this example, to move the RAH would push this facility further from the Modbury. But QEH actually has more actual emergencies than Modbury does, with a bigger catchment and a bigger unit. Modbury perhaps has more retirement villages but many of these patients have advanced directives and hence desire to be treated less agressively.

In summary, that's a long way of saying, it's probably more important for a tertiary hospital to be more accessible to other hospitals than to the gerenal public.

Bed movers really can't be made any smaller. They need the power to move hundreds of kilos whilst having the mobility and useability of not being too big.
It's really not the size of the bed mover that is the problem, it is the length of apparatus when hooked up. You have a bed mover on one end of a bed, and pumps, monitors and other equipment on the other end. Much of this needs to be disassembled in the existing lifts and reassembled on the desired floor. Also, the bed doesn't turn in the center but turns from the bed mover in a large arch like the radius of a circle.

I'm not saying that it is impossible to rebuild the hospital on its existing site but eventually, we will need a new one. Might as well be now rather than when we're waist deep in broken health system. As for it being on the site of a potential soccer stadium. It's my personal belief that we need a new hospital more than a new soccer stadium but ideally I'd love to see a new stadium put in the western parklands. I think that a health precinct and a sporting precinct will go massive lengths to revitilising the west end. I hate the under use and the uninviting nature of the parklands currently but thats for another discussion.

[Ben]

It's finally official!!!

Type: Development Application Received
Application Number: DA/1010/2010
Lodgement Date: 23/12/2010
Location: Building 01 - Depot, North Terrace, ADELAIDE SA 5000
Descriptio:n Construction of the New Royal Adelaide Hospital with allied services, car parking and landscaping

[Ho Really]

It is good to read your thoughts Amused. I'd be happy with a hospital on the railyards if at least two conditions were met.

1. I would like to see emergency access to the hospital from across the Torrens. Why? Because we need to plan for all kinds of emergencies and there is no direct route from North Adelaide.

2. A tram extension on North Terrace to the current RAH. Why? Because ambulances can run on the tram tracks unobstructed of vehicle traffic. Also because, hopefully, the tram would be free (in the city) for anyone wanting to go to the hospital from East Terrace.

On this second point, I noticed the Port Road-North Terrace section to the west of the planned hospital is above road level. Not sure whether an ambulance can mount and dismount those kerbs very well. Maybe that was a mistake. Anyway, the eastern tram line would be the same as what you see along King William Street and North Terrace nearer to the station.

Cheers

[Waewick]

I agree the Tram must be extended up to the end of North Terrace/East Terrace

This ensures that the East end remains accessible to everyone invovled in the Hospital and doesn't end up dying.

[AG]

I'd be interested to know if it'd be feasible to extend the tram line only a few hundred metres from the KWS/North Terrace junction to the East End. That section is already served by the City Loop bus as well.

[Waewick]

off topic I know, but part of the greater city loop I would have thought.

[relapse]

good post amused.

Id say 99% of the save RAH/opposed to new hospital are devout Liberal party followers from the burbs who oppose anything the govt not of their choice proposes. My own parents fall into this

I am neither of those two, I like the hospital idea, but wasting a prime riverfront location on a hopsital is laughably bad. For the the mentality of wasting prime land for a hopstial is actually a very Adelaide type mentality, it's the same type of mentality behind one way freeways, blocking the stand being built at Victoria Park etc.

[crawf]

Land facing the river will not be touched, so there is still major potential of a large-scale entertainment/residential precinct.

[Will]

The 'only in Adelaide' theme evident here is the fact that we are still debating the same point after 4 years.

[Amused]

The 'only in Adelaide' theme evident here is the fact that we are still debating the same point after 4 years.

Here here