Belmont Detox Unit Planned
Newcastle Herald
Thursday May 17, 2001
BELMONT Hospital has lodged plans for a $1.5million drug and alcohol detoxification with Lake Macquarie City Council.
Executive officer for Belmont Hospital Paul McCormack said yesterday a boiler house at the rear of the hospital was being demolished to make way for the unit.
Mr McCormack said the new 12-bed centre would be a single-storey building on the sloping hospital site.
It would have hospital workshops underneath.
The hospital hopes to have the new unit operating by next February or March.
Mr McCormack said the Hunter Area Health Service (HAHS) proposed to relocate its existing 12-bed detox unit from Wallsend Hospital to Belmont.
Mr McCormack said the proposed $1.5million unit was in addition to a $28million redevelopment program already planned for Belmont.
Further funding details of this might be contained in the upcoming State Budget, he said.
The major redevelopment of the hospital site is expected to be completed within three to five years.
The new detox unit on the redundant boiler house site is planned to accommodate patients staying for periods of five to seven days.
The unit will be staffed by nine people rostered over three shifts and is proposed to operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
There is presently a lack of a 24-hour support service for people at Wallsend Hospital's unit.
The new building, once approved by the Lake council, is to be designed to allow for a mixture of male and female patients and people of different ethnic origins.
An outreach program and a counselling service is to be provided for in-house clients.
Mr McCormack said a Belmont consultative committee had been `very supportive' of site redevelopment.
Mrs Robbie Gordon, a spokeswoman for the group, the Belmont Watchdog Committee, said later it was `delighted' that all the past planning to improve Belmont Hospital was now seeing results.
Mrs Gordon said Belmont Hospital was about to become the best hospital in the district.
© 2001 Newcastle Herald