Brisbane’s new children’s hospital has already received patients through the emergency room, hours after opening its doors for the first time.
Authorities are spending the day transferring about 180 patients from the Royal Children’s and Mater hospitals to the new Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital in South Brisbane.
Lady Cilento will provide specialist paediatric care for newborn children through to those aged 16.
The new hospital’s general manager Sue McKee said two children had already presented to the emergency department on Saturday morning with minor illnesses.
She said many of the patients being transferred were very unwell.
“We’ve had four of our patients admitted into our ICU [intensive care unit] so we’ve transferred four of those very critically unwell children, and there’s about 11 in all that we’ll be transferring today,” she said.
Children’s Hospital Queensland CEO Peter Steer said the transfer was being conducted with “military precision”.
“We’ve done a lot of computer modelling, we’ve worked with the military, and in fact we’ve obviously done some dry runs ourselves, so this is very carefully planned,” he said.
“There’s literally nothing we cannot do in this hospital, and I think that’s an extraordinary benefit to both Queensland and northern New South Wales communities.
“We cover an enormous array of specialist, but as we said this becomes the hub of a network of services for children across the state.”
Concern about technology glitches
Earlier this month, there was concern the opening of the new children’s hospital would be delayed by information and communication technology (ICT) glitches.
Documents obtained by the ABC under right to information showed three major issues with the building’s $90 million ICT systems.
There had been a risk that all cardiac technology would not be ready for the opening.
Mr Steer said at the time it was very unlikely the risks would eventuate.