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The city’s largest employer is set to swell, with Bendigo Health recruiting staff to work at the new hospital.
Nursing positions are being advertised internationally, with interviews in London and New Zealand.
Job vacancies for experienced theatre nurses, UK theatre scrubs and scouts and anaesthetic nurses were listed at the start of the month.
Applications for experienced New Zealand and UK mental health nurses have been open since late October.
Patients will be transferred to the new hospital on January 24, about a month after the interviews in New Zealand, and almost two months after the London interviews on November 29 and 30.
Andrea Noonan, Bendigo Health’s executive director of people and culture, said the vacancies were advertised locally for at least 12 months before being advertised internationally.
“So we think it’s important we explore our options are far and wide as we can,” she said.
“Now, with the expansion of services, we need more people than we did previously.”
The organisation has received funding for more than 50 new mental health nurses, with almost double the number of psychiatry beds at the new hospital.
Four new inpatient wards will contain 80 adult acute, older persons, extended care and parent-infant inpatient beds, according to the mental health nurse job advertisement.
“But we will expand services at a safe rate so no-one’s care is compromised,” Ms Noonan said.
She said Bendigo Health’s preference was local recruitment, and the international interviews are in addition to more than 60 local job advertisements in a range of roles.
“Some of them are just business as usual… but a percentage certainly are in preparation for the opening of the new facility,” Ms Noonan said.
Bendigo Health’s staff is projected to increase to almost 4000, from 3000, in the coming decade.
Board chair Bob Cameron expected 220 new full and part-time staff would be employed in in the coming year.
“Bendigo Health will increase our service delivery profile in the new hospital in both a safe and efficient manner in the months following our shift,” acute health executive director Robyn Lindsay said.
“We are confident our world class facilities and our reputation as a leading regional health care service will attract the best and brightest applicants for the opportunities available.
“We are already experiencing high levels of interest in the jobs that have been advertised to date and look forward to welcoming many new health care professionals to our team in early 2017.”
Training starts as hospital opening date nears
Bendigo Health are preparing for the move to the new hospital, with less than three months until the big day.
More than 3000 staff will complete training, orientation and induction before patients are moved into the new hospital on January 24.
Bendigo Hospital Project executive director Peter Faulkner said some of that training, in the new operating theatres, started this week.
“Staff currently undergoing training still have to suit up with personal protective equipment… they’re doing their training in hard hats and so forth,” he said.
A room in the existing hospital has been dedicated to familiarising staff with the new hospital, including how it will operate, and some basic equipment.
“Effectively everyone in the hospital is going to be starting a new job on the same day,” Bendigo Health board chair Bob Cameron said.
Fifteen staffers have been trained to an expert level and will be able to train others.
Bendigo Health refers to these experts as “super users.”
“The role of the super users is really important for the staff, both before the hospital opens and in the longer term,” Mr Faulkner said.
Positions are being backfilled while staff undergo the program, which is delivered by Bendigo Health and the hospital project’s consortium, Exemplar Health.
“That in itself, with the rostering and so forth, is quite an exercise for our staff,” Mr Faulkner said.
“Just the logistics of doing all this training while we maintain continual service to our patients and the broader community.”
Bendigo Health expects to open the new hospital with the same range of services it currently offers and expand, using more of the building as it grows.
“This is a hospital that has been built for the future,” Mr Cameron said.
“We know it’s going to expand in the years ahead.”
The $630 million Bendigo Hospital Project has involved 10 years of planning, designing and building.
Construction of the new hospital started in 2013, with a second stage to open in June 2018.
Community tours of the new hospital on December 3 are fully booked.
New hospital makes space for project’s second stage
The new hospital is almost complete, but it’s far from the end of construction on the Bendigo Hospital Project.
Work on the second stage will start shortly after the transition from the old buildings to the new is complete.
The Kurmala Wing and Stanistreet House buildings will be demolished to make way for a multi-deck carpark, a helipad, a conference centre, short-stay accommodation, and retail spaces.
A two-level bridge over Arnold Street will connect the new hospital with the second stage of the project.
Exemplar Health chief executive officer Michele Morrison said the works were included in the $630 million project budget.
The second stage of the project is due for completion in June 2018.
It answers a need for increased parking in and around the hospital precinct, which is mostly serviced by on-street carparks.
Still on Bendigo Health’s wish list is the creation of a $52 million Ambulatory Care Centre of Excellence and the demolition of two towers at the Anne Caudle Campus, which are unable to fully comply with fire safety standards.