Minister joins 160-year celebrations at Prince of Wales Hospital
Prince of Wales Hospital (POWH) staff and volunteers, past and present took part in an historic photo-call with the NSW Minister for Health, Brad Hazzard MP and Charlie Brown, our Delta therapy dog, to celebrate the 160th anniversary of caring in Randwick.
As part of the celebrations, the Prince of Wales Hospital Foundation helped organise a recreation of the original photo of the hospital being renamed by its namesake, the Prince of Wales, in 1920 - in the exact same location in the Edmund Blacket courtyard. See the foundation's video of the day's events.
Minister Hazzard and Member for Coogee Bruce Notley-Smith MP were liberal
in their praise for POWH staff and volunteers as well as the great work achieved raising funds for the hospital by the its foundation.
“I am supposed to acknowledge all the VIPs but I want to acknowledge the incredible staff and volunteers at this great hospital for their hard work, passion and dedication to caring for our most vulnerable members of the community,” the Minister said.
Bruce Notley-Smith said it was a proud day for the community: “This hospital has played such an enormous part in the lives of so many, not just locally but right across this state.”
The 160th celebrations included the unveiling of a History Wall on level two of the Parkes building, commissioned by the foundation with the history for each photo written by Audrey McCallum, President and Treasurer of the POWH Volunteers.
Along with celebrating our hospital’s rich history, the Minister also launched the schematic designs and a flythrough of what the new Acute Services Building will look like when it’s completed in 2022.
Minister Hazzard said the new building, which is part of the $720-million redevelopment of the campus, will boast the latest medical technologies and will ensure frontline health care will be delivered in state-of-the-art facilities well into the future.
“This new facility will enable streamlining of services and new models of care. It will include a new adult emergency department, more beds, a new intensive care unit and new shared operating theatres for the Randwick Campus and a new helipad.”
In the meantime, to meet demand and increase capacity, the current Emergency Department is undergoing transition works to deliver eight new treatment spaces.
The Minister finished his visit to the hospital with a tour of the new ED space.
