Hunter New England Local Health District Chief Executive, Michael DiRienzo, said the new hospital had been a decade in the works.
“I’m extremely pleased to inform our community that the official countdown is now on and in a short few days they will have access to state-of-the-art medical care in a modern and high-quality health facility,” he said.
“The transition of patients and services requires careful planning and infection control practices, and this will be our approach as we transition our staff and patients to the new hospital.
“Our staff are already hard-at-work preparing for the move, which will involve bringing our existing services across to the new hospital. This will be a staged process but will happen quite quickly over one week.”
Mr DiRienzo said patient safety was the facility’s number one priority and comprehensive plans were in place to ensure continuity of care.
“With two-thirds of the rooms in the new hospital being single rooms, along with negative pressure rooms we can also better support our COVID-positive patients in the new space,” Mr DiRienzo said.
“The new hospital has been built to cater for the community as it grows and changes, and when all services have been transferred, the existing hospital will close.”
From 9am Wednesday 19 January the existing Maitland Hospital on High Street will close to the public – with the new hospital managing the growing health service needs for Maitland and the surrounding Hunter Valley community.
Patients can get to the new hospital by public transport or can drive with a new purpose built car park available.